AMC Renault Jeep Sales Training 1983
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- Опубликовано: 29 апр 2020
- Filmed in 1982, with hidden cameras, this 2 hour training video goes though the downright brutal sales tactics some at AMC was using at the time. This is NOT your usual training video, and it showed things in a harsh, honest light.
Skip ahead to 1:14:30 to see "the close" which is guaranteed to make you uncomfortable.
In '82, AMC was in the depths of its darkest times. The US government decided they were not worth saving, Renault owned enough of the company for it to be considered Franco-American Motors, Available Jeeps were all old and stale. AMCs hottest car was a warmed over 12-year old Hornet wagon with 4WD. The small cars provided by Renault were... utter crap. It's in this environment that these films were shot. These salesmen were trying to scrape out a living selling the automotive equivalent of last weeks leftovers and imitation escargot in a can.
Full of live shots of AMC dealer showrooms, Renaults you just don't see anymore and early 80's traffic.
Salesman who says "Don't be a dummy and buy the car" is classic. Can you imagine if someone said that to you today?
Especially for that piece of crap car lol
That salesman was a REAL asshole!!!!!! If I treated a customer like that, I would expect to be fired right then & there!!!!
If you buy a new car these days you are a dummy.
@@landyachtfan79ok karen
They still say that. Just phrase it differently.
I can't believe I sat through this entire film. Loved it.
oh horse feathers
Did you try the lasagna? That one's my favorite.
Every dealer does the same act. Buying a car is the most uncomfortable experience ever. Buying a mattress at a furniture/mattress store is a close second..
I was just about to mention buying a mattress. My wife an I bought a new mattress a few weeks ago. I went into a mattress store an the saleslady made a beeline to me an immediately started badgering me being really pushy I couldn't get out of that store fast enough.
Buying a car is my most favourite thing to do in life! 😂
@@dylanrampage9360 It' no wonder why people buy them at costco/sams/bj's ect.
I disagree. The only negative car-buying experience I’ve ever had was at not one, but two Lexus dealerships. The one guy was talking at me through my CLOSED window as I was driving off the lot.
Man, so many comments on people slamming the jeep as old.......It wasn't hard to sell these jeeps....even the comment about them looking like the 70's....my Gosh, the Wagoneer was designed in 1962 and the CJ7 in the 1950's But they sold and they sold well increasing year after year thru the 80's. The Jeep made AMC attractive to Chrysler because everyone was moving to SUV's and Chrysler wasn't big in that market The Eagle was an old platform designed in 1966, but again, the car was the first Cross Over in America, it was revolutionary......the Renaults....they are featuring the LeCar in this and frankly, it was one of the best sub compacts out there at the time. Highly rated by all the magazine....i owned one myself and loved it. AMC and the Jeeps were good solid vehicles. The Wagoneer is now a cult car now...and highly desired
The Grand Wagonner is an icon. It's a cultural landmark that should be on a postage stamp and remain in our minds forever, like the Coke bottle.
The "host/narrator" of this film was Sam Groom, a soap opera actor and spokesman in AMC commercials that aired during the late '70s and early '80s. Sam Groom was one of the best things American Motors had going for them at that time. I always enjoyed him as their spokesman in the "Tough Americans" commercials. He came across as simple, straight forward, direct, and honest with a bit of a rugged nature. Exactly what AMC and Jeep should've been going for. He did a good job for them, and it wasn't always an easy sell.
Great info! He's still alive btw.
Great video that I did not expect. I had a very successful 30 year career in auto sales. Mostly at just one dealership until I decided to move to another state. Since there is such distrust of dealers among buyers, I cultivated long term relationships so that my customers knew there was no need for them to adopt guerilla tactics. Sometimes when dealing with new customers I might spend some time with them and then they would go shopping and I would get calls like this: "Thomas I really liked dealing with you, but I visited another dealer and they are $200 less on the same pickup truck what can you do?" So I would ask them to call the other dealer back and verify that the price they were quoted included a spare tire and a rear bumper - and my customer would ask in disbelief "don't they all come with those?" When I answered that both were actually delete options that some dealers use for price leaders, that was when my customers knew I was treating them fairly and they bought from me.
rear bumpers are required by law.
@@marks6663 Maybe currently in your state - but I sold pickups years ago with rear bumper deletes to customers planning on adding either custom ranch hand bumpers or a large slide in bed camper.
@@Thomas63r2 ...required by federal safety regulations.
@@ficklefingeroffate Not on trucks, or at least not when I was in sales - I'm retired now. There was a time when vehicles could be bought with a radio delete or an antenna delete or a rear view mirror delete or a heater delete. Decades before my sales career there was a time when cars were only required to have one tail light.
Not always...
This is awesome! Takes me back.
Salesman @ 1:15:00 is my favorite in this video. If you see him as mean, you're reading him wrong. This dude is honest, hard core and for real with people. No time for bullshit or indecisiveness. He gives you the cold facts. I bet he was the leading salesman at that dealer.
Enjoyed the video, I want to congratulate thank you
This is the most interesting video I have stumbled across for awhile. Granted most vehicles weren’t great in this era, but these guys are trying to sell a hodgepodge of vehicles from a woody station wagon that looks like it came from 1970, small imported French cars and Jeeps that were archaic even at this point. More modern vehicles did come to AMC right after this with the Alliance (nice little modern car at the time, but horrid reliability) XJ Cherokee, and Wrangler, but of course Chrysler was knocking on the door by then.
Chrysler wasn't knocking on the door until the President of Renault was murdered.
I was just a small kid back then but at least at that time in the 1980s they had a lot of options and diversity in the car market with cars that had different designs and options. These days if you go to the dealership it's a pretty boring experience every vehicle looks the same with the only options being an SUV or crossover in gray, silver, white or black.
Yeah you definitely had a lot more choice of exterior and interior colors, seating types and interior appointments that you don't have now. Back then and before everything was optional, down to the glove box light and cigarette lighter.
I've actually seen a US Army interrogation methods training film that's putting less pressure than this salesman.
I admire the guts of those who chose to make a living selling AMCs. Must have been very challenging. They were the ultimate underdog and sad that they did not survive. That said, this video is a sad reminder of the financial disaster that is the American dream of owning a car and the manipulative tactics used to convince people to buy something they cannot afford and should not be buying. This video is also a reminder of when cars were so much simpler and basic. Now we all have to overpay for fancy computers and entertainment and performance all by borrowing money to do it. Biggest mistake most people make.
So everyone should be riding a bicycle like communist China in the 1970s. OK. Thanks to capitalism and having a credit line people can have modern conveniences in countries like America while they can still enjoy them. And yes, they'll be taken better care of when they are old than in all other governments who call themselves Socialist. Your hypocrisy is astounding.
You only have to overpay for that crap if you're dumb enough to be suckered into wasting your money on that stuff. If you know what you're doing the cars worth buying are out there and so much less expensive than anyone will tell you.
1:18:20 that was so classy it looked like a movie scene or something the way he straight up offers his lighter like that
The definition of class LOL!!!!
We bought two cars from Stahl’s. Derby, Connecticut
Friend of mine had one with wood paneling on the side. It was a beast in the snow.
I remember my neighbors had one of those when I was a kid, I would always see them getting ready to go out camping in it
My dad bought two Renault Encores in the mid 80's and he got bent over the barrel pretty good by these slick salesmen. That being said, I always liked the Fuego Turbo, that was a hot and stylish car in its day. too bad they didn't last. I wonder if there are any running examples left in the world these days.
Lol!Fuego's likely all in the junkyard by mid 90's
I had a Le Car, piece of junk 👍
I remember the commercials for those back then. There was one that the motor was in the back, but I can't remember if they were Renault.
@@argent2020 That was the Renault with the engine in the back.I remember them well.
Loved the Renault Alliance GTA convertibles. Cool looking little cars.
imagine showing these people in 1983 a 2023 or 24 model mercedes EQS 53 AMG with the hyperscreen up front...they wouldn't even believe its a car at all....
Wow, the salespeople REALLY don't want their prospective buyers to leave.
Okay but what ‘discs’ are these videos supposedly on? Laserdisc??
being a car salesman in 83 let alone at an amc-jeep-renault dealership would be awesome
AMC Jeep Renault dealership was probably the worst place to work as a salesman at this time if you wanted to make sales. Just being truthful. It probably got a little better for awhile when the Alliance and XJ Cherokees showed up, but at this point… Le Cars? Yeah the kids are eating ramen noodles tonight.
I'll pass
@@aarond23 Me Too!!!!
Depends on the dealer’s reputation. Some of the AMC dealers became Jeep-Eagle and then CDJR. Most sales were repeat customers that bought AMC or Jeep.
Hope that guy buying the Eagle didn’t go with the “Rusty Jones” treatment. They went out of business in 1987
58:55 The Human League - Don't You Want Me. 80's rocked!!!!
Thank goodness the Jeep line survived at all.
If it wasn’t for AMC in the 70s Jeep was going to be bought by some of the big 3 in the late 60s and probably be extinct because Jeep was not what it was in the late 80s
@@eraummenino3011 Interesting. I suppose I should be glad we still make Jeeps in Toledo.
@ChryslerMan Amiga 1084 Oh I'm sure.
Why? They have never had LOWER road test scores and reliability as they have now!
I'm surprised that one customer admitted that his car was on its last legs, and another customer admitted that his car had a fuel injection problem. That makes it impossible to get a good deal. The price of the new car will be inflated, and the trade-in value will be deflated.
Those AMC Eagles are basically the first Crossover suv. 4x4 Wagon, hatchback..hence the SUV crossover
W.W.J.L.D.
“What Would Jerry Lundegård Do”
😳...🤭aw geez!
Hey thats Sam Groom hosting the video
Renault has always been a big player in Latin America, and back in those days the Fuego was one of the hottest cars around. I still believe Renault should have tried to sell the magnificent Alpine in the USA instead of their small econoboxes.
I wasn't familiar with the Alpine, but wow, what a great looking vehicle for back then, yes just including that in the lineup probably would have boosted sales across all models.
Great video's ty
1:19:10 'Nobody gives cars away no more regardless of what you hear' That right there is a lie. Pretty much all divisions of General Motors were practically giving cars away during this time. They had to in order to try and compete with all the better import car brands.
37:22 Imagine selling a brand new vehicle featuring how the sleeved cylinders are replaceable. :D
It is a good thing for a Diesel engine not sure how it worked out on these
Laserdisc, but one would have to have a randomly addressable laserdisc player to be viewed properly, able to jump to chapters and such, not just a standard laserdisc player.
Everybody shopped at insanely huge eyeglasses mart back then
1:33:30
This dealership is now a Walmart. No more haggling at that location.
It does seem a more realistic picture, and those were dealers have to sell a poor product, even compared to the malaise era competition. Definitely a world 'where only the best salespeople survives.'
The days of haggling over $200 are long over. Going over the features of the car and the powertrain is something nobody seems to care about anymore, since all trucks and SUV's look the same and have the same features and equipment. There is no style left on vehicles, they're pods, appliances, nothing more than white refrigerators now. All anyone seems to think about is the monthly payment, how the infotainment system interacts with their phone and if there's an accident avoidance system, so they don't crash while playing with their phones.
The days of "brick and mortar" dealers are just about over. I bought a 2020 Chevy Blazer (used) a month ago using "face time" on my Apple iphone 12. It was a totally "digital" business transaction with "Carousel On-line" located in Hopkins, MN. It was the MOST satisfying buying experience I have ever had. The entire experience, including valuing my trade-in was done without meeting anybody in person. The Blazer was shipped to Thorp, WI, (150mi), trade-in was picked up for only $399 shipping. The Blazer had 51000 on the clock, but looked liked it came off the showroom floor. Just an AWESOME experience! This is the future of car buying/selling.
I mean yeah most people are going to buy something that meets their utilitarian needs more than "style"
At 1:45:15 there's an AMC Pacer driving by!
1:50 Someone messed up on those pinstripes.
"ohh horse feathers" ! lol, beautiful.
Looks like the same training all the salespeople at the Ford, Chevy and other dealerships use as well. I worked at a Buick GMC Pontiac dealer and it wasn't much different.
Wonder how many of these people in the video are still alive. Hopefully they landed positions with Chrysler after the buyout of AMC in 1987. I still have the 1986 jeep Cherokee my father bought off the show room floor in Brooklyn (Speed Auto Sales). She’s a fully restored garage Queen at this point .
Was that on Coney Island Ave?
@@alb12345672 Flatbush Ave a few min from Kings Plaza
Everyone of them wanted to know if there was a trade in. Never discuss a possible trade in until you agree on a price.
I miss AMC.....would love to see an alternate world where they were bought by Chrysler but allowed to continue operating independently until the 2000's . I'd love to see what AMC would have produced through the 90s and during those horrible late 90's GMC years.
With those old, tired designs and that old Kenosha plant? Can't see any alternate world where that would have worked for much longer than it did.
When Mercedes owned Chrysler they did an engine quality study. The Kenosha built 4.0 came in first place. I hear it really pissed the Germans off, even though it was their company.
@@ericchristensen4107 I was referring to the Kenosha lakefront and main body plants. Those were ancient plants that Chrysler closed in 1989.
That’s true although they were ranked first I believe in quality with the M body when closed. Too bad the money invested in the Canada plant wasn’t used in Kenosha.
@@ericchristensen4107 The main problem is they had two plants several miles away and they physically trucking bodies from one to the other.
1:14:46. "Hold it. Now honestly." That salesman would never even have gotten me at his desk. What a turnoff.
First he says "Don't be a dummy." Then he says "At least you're not pressured", seeming to mean "at this dealership".
He's a potty-mouth, too.
Jesus Christ these dudes arguing about 100 or 200 bucks on some FWD French shitbox.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
That's 300 to 600 dollars in 2024 money.
The Eagle SX/4 buyer would have been best off getting the 258 I-6
That guy at 1:14:30 smoked a pack of cigs just to sell that guy a car. 10% markup-1 pack of Lucky Strikes+ car sale LOL
"Don't be a dummy, buy the car!" Looked like a comedy skit.
I have not seen a Renault 1.8 in forever.
I haven't seen a Renault of any kind in the United States in forever.
Because they're dust
What a contrast with the Mercedes video.
It's Bill Lumbergh
The test ride in the Renault with the married couple was absolutely Brutal!!!! I would have kicked her right out at the first stop sign
I'll give you $500 over the list for that Scrambler right now!
0:44 “Ohhh, HORSE FEATHERS!”
The sales man could use physical force to get the customer to test drive the car😂
Nice video I like reno
Press the Concord back into production and people would buy them...lovely cars.
Well if you google 1984 AMC Concord you will find photos of clay mock ups of proposed facelifted sedans and coupes that were seriously considered for production
The reason the concord went away was because people weren't buying them .
@@HowardJrFord it was actually because they had the Renault Alliance and Encore to replace them in their market segment.
@@benscovil they also weren't selling . They had become seriously outdated by the late 70's . They were based on a body shell and chassis that dated back to 1970 . GM , Ford and Chrysler , as well as the Japanese were bringing out models that were more space efficient , were lighter , had FWD , got better fuel economy , had better handling due to rack and pinion steering and modern strut suspension , the list goes on . The concord was a dinosaur and it was lucky to be around as long as it was .
@@HowardJrFord they were immensely popular when they came out in 1978 as an updated Hornet. AMC got plenty of what they needed out of them for the 6 years they were in production. Eagle used the same unibody another 5 years after the discontinuation of Concord and it sold just fine.
Those Eagle's 👌🏽
LaserDisc?
Yes, exactly! This is what laserdisc technology looks like when it gets ripped to RUclips. Amazing to think of AMC dealers with laserdiscs in the back. Where did you learn to fly?
FYI, LaserDisc was a HUGE step-up from poopy 240line video tape (remember VCRs?)
A TWO HOUR VIDEO?!?! No wonder they didn’t survive.
I remember the day we bought our AMC Hornet..... days later in hot weather it overheated and would occasionally. Come to find out AMC bought the 4 cylinder engine from Ford but packaged it into the Hornet with too small of a radiator. My father sold the car after an year of trouble and saw it a year later totally rusting out from top to bottom
Nope, no ford engine nor did they rust that quickly. Try again....
The narrator is actor Sam Groom.
Such a different world back then. Maybe I could have made it as a salesman back in the day. I tried in 2015 with Toyota... Admittedly I was only selling cars I barely tolerated.
Tuff to sell something if you don't like the product. With a intense dislike of pretty much every car built today except for the Niva Classic... Just never meant to be.
I forgot to add this part in. Nobody gave a rats ass about anything BUT the price. Cause every dealership has the same inventory, the same base rates, the same financing ( Toyota Motor Credit union ) and pretty much every "new" car was going to be breakdown free for the first 80k... Litterally nobody cared about safety, or practicality. Except when it came to third row seats. Everyone wanted to try and get a mid tier 4 Runner with a third row that only existed on paper as far as management was concerned.
0:42 Oh horsefeathers!!
that's Mike Rowe.
Don't forget that 80's rapper Warren T...
that salesman proved himself a liar. He said that the markup on a 9500 car was 10 percent, or 950. He said he already came down to 9100 so he had given away 400 of it already. But he ultimately came down to 8700, so he gave away 800 of the 950 he said the dealership made. Obviously he was lying. He would not sell a car with only 150 profit.
A salesman telling a lie ? You're kidding , right ? Bahaha
Nowadays, the pennies on the dollar trade in value of your car, holdback and kickback from the financing and pushy hardsell extended warranty make up for it.
When I sold cars 20 years ago for Toyota sometimes we would be below profit margin and we either made money on the backend or sometimes they had a special. If you sold a certain amount of cars in a month you would get a bonus example sell five Toyota Prius and get a $2000 bonus, etc.. selling cars now must be a breeze. Everything sounds for MSRP or above but 20 years ago you would have people go to 10 different dealers to save a nickel. I sold cars plenty of times just a few hundred dollars over what we paid now it would be unheard of but not 20 years ago. I only lasted one year. I did not like the cutthroat or the hours having to work. Plus it would’ve been easier for me to sell something. I actually liked and drove like selling Mercedes or BMW or a car brand I liked, but I never cared for Toyota much. I know they are reliable cars, but they mostly ugly in those are the people penny pinching to see if they could save a nickel somewhere. funny thing is years later I had an offer to work for Mercedes the dealership that I bought my last eight or nine Mercedes from I turned it down, because I actually had a few businesses of my own. FYI just sold my last Benz GLE AMG coupe for my new hellcat. Going to have fun with this for a few years than store it. Will def go back to Benz as my daily driver after I’m done with my latest toy. And if you’re interested, my Durango hellcat will be going through a lot of changes in the next six weeks. Go to my RUclips channel and check it out. I have AI design doing the work,the best in the business just check out there RUclips channel.
Oh look it's a crossover long before they were supposed to exist.
Customer at the beginning sounds like Bruce Campbell.
You don't get that Tru-Coat, ya get oxidation....
No internet pricing back then,💻
57:33..........I was DEFINITELY rocking out with "Don't You Want Me" as the customer was driving that Fuego!!!!!!! And that salesman at 1:14:39 was a REAL asshole!!!!!! If I treated a customer like that, I would expect to be fired right then & there!!!!
The salesman at 1:14:39 may have been an a--hole, but the car buyer in that exchange kicked a$$. The car buyer was solid as a rock and didn't cave in, while the salesman keeps getting frustrated; look how many cigarettes he smokes. Finally, after almost ten minutes, the salesman asks the buyer for his price, which he eventually gets. The buyer was a pro.
Yes, but @@krell56......................at 1:17:20........."Buy the car, buy the car. Don't be a dummy, buy the car"...............REALLY?!!!!!! If I owned a car dealer, & heard one of my salespeople treating a customer like THAT, I would be sending that customer to deal with another salesperson, & that salesperson would be in my office getting reprimanded, & then told to pack their shit & get out.....they're fired. Yes, they DO have to make something. It's a business, after all, but their FIRST responsibility is making sure that customer doesn't end up living in a box on the highway because the price of the car was more than they could possibly afford.
@@landyachtfan79 very well said
Interesting
@ 1:18:15 - absolutely my favorite part of the whole thing. Hard to imagine the world where you could sit in the office and smoke a cigarette with the finance manager while negotiating and saying things like "i'll burn the car before I give it away"
Boss move!
That was quite the negotiation 😂😂😂😂😂. Endless back and forth
absolutely! Strictly business while enjoying a smoke. I love that the customer lit the manager's cigarette. Both mean business and are serious. One on One negotiating and interaction. A lost art.
1:39:24. I would have lied!
Hooray.
Now that Chrysler is owned by Stelantis, they should relaunch AMC with new models.
Kinda tough to do when dealers have a 108 day supply of RAM pickups and are laying off 3500 workers.
1:18:17 could you imagine this happening today , lol
This was after the landmark 1964 Surgeon General's report on the dangers of smoking but before society turned against secondhand smoke. All that secondhand smoke is one reason that the old days weren't always good.
Love it!!! Real life negotiations that salesman was a guy I’d gladly buy a car from.
Five years later, American Motors will be out of business.
Is anyone else getting ASMR vibes from certain parts of this video?
When a customer sets foot on the runner inside the front door where I work, they don't leave that spot until I've qualified what they need. Genius. And genius is what you need when selling AMC and Jeep and Renault at the same dealership. Haha.
So glad many dealerships now pay their salespeople a salary rather than commission , less pressure on the consumer.
AMC. Proof people will buy any POS you put in front of them.
This is about as awkward as taking a dump at work.
Le Car=Le Shit
Same words car sellers were saying 40 years ago are the same words they say now a day
What a bizarre interaction at 1:10 mark Iv bought 7 new cars, Iv never had an interaction with a salesman like that. 😂😂😂😂. Almost like dealing with a psychologist 😂😂😂😂
“Interesting. He’s not talking about safety at all, but reliability.... maybe we shouldn’t have sold rebadged Renaults as AMC’s, cause French cars are kinda shit when it comes to that.” -AMC Car Sales Video Guy
His name is Sam Groom.
@@benscovil Sam Groom was one of the best things American Motors had going for them at that time. I always enjoyed him as their spokesman in the "Tough Americans" commercials. He came across as simple, straight forward, direct, and honest with a bit of a rugged nature. Exactly what AMC and Jeep should've been going for. He did a good job for them, and it wasn't always an easy sell.
@@atarigames I have spoken to him on the phone as well. He's a true gentleman, now 84 years old. He genuinely loved working for American Motors.
And 40 years later..... Please!?, I do not want any vehicle at 10 miles per gallon 😁 but I sure do.... getting a vehicle at 1983 prices LOL.... I was a sophomore in High School back in 1983
I wish I could go back and buy a couple of CJ's or Scramblers for less than ten grand.
Phil Hartman
1:16:10, How much did you pay for that jacket 50,60,70 dollars? LOL😂
I love this. He said the lifespan on a new car is 100k miles. Ahh the 80s😂
11:53🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
I think this was phoney. They said it was hidden camera but how was the sound recorded? If the only mic was on the salesman, then the customer would not be so clear and the sound would taper off as he moved away from the salesman. Plus you would hear clothes ruffling of the mic under the shirt. And cameras in 1983 were huge. So this huge camera is just sitting staring at these guys and the customer never looks at it?
So no, this was not a hidden camera operation.
Some cameras were big; some not. And the audio phenomena that you say _would_ happen _did_ happen. Also, a lapel mic doesn't have to be unidirectional and quiet. It's also not hard to install hidden microphones near desks and in cars.
They used multiple hidden mics...
45:00 Jeep stuff
The cigarettes in the dealership offices date this film. That would be prohibited nowadays. This is an example of why the old days weren't always good.
It's a small price to pay to live in a world we recognize.
Watching that scene actually gave me the urge to light up a "Camel"........
The salesman is too short and walks too fast. As the nephew of a Used car dealer owner, never trust a short car salesman 😂😂😂
This narrator makes me worry for the safety of my family.