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Fascinated by cars, he got a job in a service station soon after graduation from high school. Within a few years he had his own service station, beating customers to the pump with a big hello. Drafted in World War II, he got out of the Army with a medical discharge in 1943 (an arthritic condition) and. taking advantage of the car shortage, set up a used-car lot.
He bought a Ford dealership in 1945 from a dealer going out of business, but Ford gave the lucrative franchise to someone else. Moran shopped around until he got Hudson to take him on as a dealer, shifted to a better location, and called his new firm Courtesy Motors. Moran went on TV with other Hudson dealers jointly sponsoring a wrestling match. He made such a hit that he took over the sponsorship and announced his own commercials. After that came a TV variety show of his own, a barn dance and late movies, with Moran making his pitches at intermissions. Before long he was Hudson's No. 1 U.S. dealer, selling more than 10% of the factory's production.
Moran's eager-beaverness got him into trouble. When he began offering a "lifetime guarantee" against defective parts in his cars, customers complained that he met their objections by insisting that parts were worn by age rather than defective. His salesmen were also accused of "bushing." Complaints piled up in a thick file at the Chicago Better Business Bureau. In 1954 Chicago's other Hudson dealers brought an antitrust suit against both Moran and Hudson, charging that Moran got his cars from the factory at a favored price. Moran denied the charges, but the factory made a cash settlement out of court.
When Moran saw that Hudson and its backward styling were about to go under, he switched to Ford—which was now glad to welcome him. In his first month with Ford, he sold an astounding 804 new cars. His reputation also took a turn for the better. He revised his advertising, shrank his lifetime guarantee to a more realistic 30 days. Complaints to the Better Business Bureau have steadily dwindled, last year totaled only 25.
Dog Drivers? Courtesy Motors' sales have risen every year since Moran went with Ford except recession 1958, reached a new record of $41 million last year.
But the company's net earnings were only a meek $117,000. down 55%—reflecting the narrow profit margin a dealer has in today's shopper's market. In 1960 the average dealer's pretax profit margin was only .5%—the second worst year of the last ten. Dealers averaged $22 profit on each new car sold. One result: dealer failures are up 43%. Last week Denver's Bob Jones Skyland Ford Inc., once one of the biggest U.S. Ford dealers, closed its doors, and Cicero, Ill.'s Sterling-Harris Ford Agency faced bankruptcy proceedings.