Dale Says

If you want a car or truck, go see Cal.
If you want to save a buck, go see Cal.
Give a new car to your wife,
She will love you all your life.
Go see Cal, go see Cal, go see Cal.

Anyone who lived in California in the 1960’s, 1970’s, or 1980’s is familiar with that TV ad, which was sung to the tune of “If You’re Happy and You Know It” by car dealer, Cal Worthington. The ad, and similar versions of it, saturated California TV airwaves for decades, and a generation grew up knowing their problems would be solved if they went to see Cal. He sold a lot of cars — more than a million of them, by his count — and at one time in the 1960s he ran an empire of 29 dealerships from San Diego to Anchorage.

Calvin Coolidge “Cal” Worthington had humble beginnings. He was born November 27, 1920 in Bly, Oklahoma, a small town that no longer exists, one of nine children in a dirt-poor family that moved around the southwest to find work. His early life was awful, as his family lived in a small house with no plumbing, little food, homemade clothes, and no shoes. Cal dropped out of school at age 13, worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Depression, and enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942. He became a pilot and found that he loved flying. During World War II, he flew B-17 Flying Fortresses on 29 bombing missions over Germany, including bombing raids over Berlin. He earned a Distinguished Flying Cross and the rank of captain. Cal tried to become a commercial pilot, but lack of a college degree disqualified him.

After leaving the military, Cal sold his car and used the money to buy a gas station in Corpus Christi, Texas. That venture didn’t work, but he sold used cars on the side and established his first car dealership. He moved to California, bought a Hudson dealership in Huntington Park, and began making radio, and later TV ads to sell his cars. He was the top-selling Dodge dealer in the U.S. through the 1960s, but his business was hit hard by the oil embargo of the 1970s. To supplement his income, Cal sold motorized pogo sticks and delivered traffic reports to radio stations from a helicopter that he piloted.

He rebounded in the 1980’s and sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cars, and acquired ranches, shopping centers, and an office building.

Cal’s ads always started with the line, “Hi, I’m Cal and this is my dog, Spot.” It was a parody of a competitive car dealer who always appeared in ads with a German Sheppard named Storm. But instead of a dog, Cal appeared with exotic animals; such as a whale, elephant, or tiger, or even an airplane on which Worthington would be appear standing atop the wings while airborne. Those ads turned Cal into a cult celebrity, and earned him appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and in TV programs and movies.

Cal’s personal life was less successful than his business life. He was married four times, and each marriage ended in divorce. He often said he didn’t do anything well … he just stuck with it.

He continued to fly most of his life, often piloting his own private planes to his car dealerships or to film TV commercials. “I never liked the car business,” Cal often said. “I just kind of got trapped in it after the war. I didn’t have the skills to do anything else. I just wanted to fly.”