Tesla, which had just lately launched the Mannequin 3, was rising as a power within the auto business, with new showrooms in outstanding locations that had been owned by the automaker, not franchisees like Chambers. Melissa prompt they see what the massive deal was. So in they went, Herb Chambers behind enemy strains.
There, a younger man gave them an outline of the Tesla, going, in Chambers’ current retelling, “on and on and on.” Chambers regarded across the spare showroom and requested if they really bought vehicles there. The younger man then launched Chambers to a salesman.
By means of rationalization, Chambers first instructed me this story again in 2018 throughout a lunch in Again Bay, however vowed, and I’m paraphrasing solely barely right here, to primarily kill me if I shared it with anybody else, very a lot together with readers of this information group. I tucked it away, as any half-decent reporter would, with hopes of bringing it to life on the proper second.
That second got here final week, when Chambers introduced that he was selling his fabulously successful network of car dealerships to a nationwide conglomerate for nicely over a billion {dollars}. With that form of cash within the financial institution, he can afford to be embarrassed, so I reached out and he begrudgingly instructed me the story once more.
On that Saturday, he requested the salesperson how they bought vehicles in the event that they didn’t have any to drive on quite a bit — and for that matter, didn’t have quite a bit, both. The salesperson mentioned there have been Teslas within the Prudential Middle storage downstairs, and minutes later, Chambers was settling into the motive force’s seat, the salesperson using shotgun, Melissa within the again, heading out on a check drive.
That went nicely till it didn’t, however we’ll dwell right here on the nice. This was Chambers’ first time behind the wheel of an electrical automobile and, whereas a bit nervous, he couldn’t imagine the way it felt.
“We go down Boylston,” he mentioned. “This automobile is sort of a rocket. It’s quick and it’s fast and there’s this huge display within the automobile. We’re capturing it round Again Bay and the salesperson says, ‘Let’s get on the Pike and see how briskly it goes.’ I mentioned, ‘I’ve some expertise driving vehicles. I don’t have to.’”
They returned to the Pru storage, the place the salesperson directed Chambers to park in an area amid the opposite Teslas. As Chambers was backing in, the useful salesman identified a component on the dashboard display.
“It’s a meter,” Chambers mentioned. “It says, ten, 9, eight, seven, six. It tells me how far-off I’m from the article behind me. The salesperson saved saying, ‘Have a look at it,’ so I’m taking a look at it. Possibly it was on 5, or three, when hastily the automobile crashes into the wall.
“I might hear crunching,” Chambers mentioned. “A lot crunching. I’m sitting there and I couldn’t imagine it. I received out and the spoiler on the again was fully smashed. I used to be so embarrassed.”
On condition that there is probably not a automobile shopper alive who hasn’t been afraid of scratching, dinging, or outright crashing the automobile that they’re check driving, try to be comfy realizing that Herb Chambers, the automobile seller to the plenty, might mainly function the patron saint of that very particular form of concern.
Standing one stage down within the Pru storage with a tangled Tesla in entrance of him and a considerably shocked salesman assessing the harm, Chambers blurted out the one factor he might suppose to say: “I need to purchase a automobile. I’ll purchase this one.”
Take into accout, this all occurred when Elon Musk was merely the enigmatic chief government of a newfangled electrical automobile firm, not the self-obsessed egomaniac haphazardly trying to dismantle the federal government. Today, individuals might need cheered the sight of the Tesla mashed up in opposition to the wall.
The salesperson, to his credit score, famous that the automobile was smashed and doubtless not price shopping for. So the three of them went again upstairs to the showroom, the place Chambers put down a $10,000 deposit on one other Tesla and received out of there as quickly as humanly potential.
This plan to purchase the automobile, by the way in which, is traditional Chambers. He’s, as many individuals say, uncommonly empathetic, given what he’s achieved, whether or not it’s within the tradition he creates in his dealerships or the rationale behind the current $100 million donation to the brand new most cancers heart at Massachusetts Basic Hospital.
Chambers despatched the paperwork to the overall supervisor of certainly one of his Mercedes Benz dealerships, who promptly requested, “What the hell did you do?” After listening to the story, he instructed Chambers, “You may’t purchase a Tesla. This may be humiliating.” Chambers mentioned he might preserve it on the Mercedes lot for purchasers to match. When that concept received rejected, he mentioned he’d convey it to his home in Connecticut, hidden from the world.
“He instructed me, ‘You may’t have this automobile. Folks crash vehicles in check drives on a regular basis.’ Then he mentioned he was going to name and cancel.”
Wait. Folks crash vehicles in check drives on a regular basis? Please, expensive readers, I’m begging you: Share your finest I-crashed-a-car-in-a-test-drive tales, ideally verifiable, and I’ll personally attempt to persuade Herb Chambers to permit the teller of one of the best story to check drive one thing from his Maserati dealership earlier than the sale of his firm is closed.
Chambers mentioned the Tesla transaction was, certainly, canceled, although they received a invoice from the corporate a number of months later for $3,000 for the restore.
That entire expertise, scarring because it was, could nicely have put Chambers on a path to driving an electrical automobile, although not a Tesla. Today, he mentioned he drives a Rolls-Royce Spectre, which has a sticker within the half one million greenback vary, and you can also make a good guess that he’s not spending time observing any meter that tells him how shut he’s to a wall.
Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He will be reached at brian.mcgrory@globe.com.
