Make no mistake, bub, Southern California is car country.
So car dealer Calvin Coolidge Worthington decided to have a little fun, get attention, and flood his lots with “My Dog Spot” TV commercials featuring a burly gorilla live.
The ads, in which he also used other animals such as a dog named Spot (a penguin, a camel, an elephant, a bear, a lion, a hippo and a tiger), helped Worthington build an empire of 27 dealerships that sell more than 1 million cars.
Many of these commercials were filmed under the large “Worthington Ford in Long Beach” sign at the dealership he purchased in 1963.
Now this sign has come to mark the end of an era. Worthington’s family said they have sold the 3-acre business, the last dealership still named after the legendary car salesman who died in 2012.
“It’s very sad,” Nick Worthington, Cal’s grandson, said in an interview with ABC7. “Our employees have been with us for more than 40 years.
“It’s part of everyone’s childhood and life growing up here,” he added. “It’s hard to close this book for everyone.”
On Saturday, Shawn Abdallah, the dealership’s chief financial officer, said news of the sale “came as a shock, even though there had been rumors for a couple of months that something like this was going on.”
“The rumors were confirmed on Thursday,” he said, “when Nick had everyone gather in a conference room here for an important message.
“He said, ‘You’ve probably heard the rumors and I’m here today to confirm them,'” Abdallah recalled. “It was very emotional. And yes, there were tears everywhere.”
The buyer, Nouri/Shaver Automobile Group, plans to keep all Worthington Ford employees, but they will have to reapply for their jobs, Abdallah said.
The iconic blue “Worthington” sign overlooking Bellflower Boulevard, Abdallah said, “will not be removed until March 1.”
Meanwhile, visitors don’t have to go far to see reminders of the flashy stunts the Oklahoma transplant used to sell himself during a 65-year career that made him an icon of Southern California’s quirky culture.
The showroom of shiny new Ford models, for example, features a floor-to-ceiling photograph of Worthington cheek-to-cheek with a tiger — the most likable of all the animals that have helped him create a cult following.
It’s a reminder of a quirky era when car salesmen here in the capital of car and freeway culture dressed like Napoleon, wore halos and adopted exotic animals for sale.
Worthington’s signature stunts were the “Dog Spot” commercials, which first appeared on the air in 1971. They were originally intended to be spoofs of two competitors: Ralph Williams and Fletcher Jones.
Williams had launched an ad campaign featuring a German shepherd named Storm, and Jones appeared on TV cuddling puppies.
“I decided I was going to imitate them,” Worthington recalled in an interview. So he borrowed a gorilla, chained it to the bumper of a car and let the cameras roll.
Trying to appear calm, the scrawny pitcher wearing a cowboy hat and an ear-to-ear grin launched into that typically popular tactic with words of welcome: “Hi, I’m Cal Worthington and this is my dog Spot.”
“I found this guy at the pound,” she added, with a smile, “and he’s so full of love.”
The new owners of the dealership will change the name to BP Ford.
This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
