3:00pm | Long Beach City Manager Pat West said today that long-lived car dealership Cal Worthington Ford of Long Beach, known throughout the region for commercials featuring its cowboy hat-wearing owner along with circus animal friends, could possibly leave the city.
“We are trying not to get in front of Cal on this,” West said in an answer to an e-mail query about the rumored possibility of Cal Worthington leaving the city.
West was not immediately available to elaborate on his comments. Cal Worthington General Manager Dave Karalis did not immediately return two calls seeking his comment on the possibility of an exodus from Long Beach by the dealership.
Noise around the possible move grew louder following comments by Long Beach City Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske during this past Tuesday’s council meeting:
“We sit here and we go off about how we should support the C-17 project,” she said. “Or I get a phone call saying what can we do to keep a Ford Dealership in Long Beach because they are getting incentives from someplace else.”
Schipske declined the opportunity to comment for this article through her staff. The dealership lies within her jurisdiction.
Worthington, who liked to feature tame circus animals as his “Dog Spot,” could be seen for years on area television stations in lengthy commercials encouraging visitations from viewers with the slogan “Go See Cal.”
“I’ll stand on my head ‘till my ears turn red,” or “I’ll stand on my head to beat anybody’s deal,” were other famed Worthington lines from his commercials.
Calvin Coolidge “Cal” Worthington was born Nov. 27, 1920 in Shindler, Oklahoma. The Worthington Dealership Group has been in business for 57 years, and claims on its Website to have sold more than 1 million vehicles. According to news stories in the early 1990’s, Worthington had grossed over $300 million in 1988, and since that report Worthington has claimed to be the world’s largest single auto dealer. Worthington himself owns an advertising agency, Spot Advertising, which has Worthington as its only client, raking in $15 million on commercials.
Additional reporting by Ryan ZumMallen.
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