The Eichel and the Used Car Story

1962

A True Story

Written 19/2016* 641 Words*

By Howard Yasgar

In 1962, I was 23 years old and I was in Stamford Connecticut learning how to run a used car business.

My partner and mentor Abe Zion was teaching me all the tricks of the trade.

Abe was a very smart fellow, and I was fortunate to be able to learn the used car business from him.

Once a month, Abe and I would drive into New York and we would walk into the first big car dealership we saw.

Within a few minutes of talking to the manager, Abe was able to buy all the old trade in cars sitting in the car agency’s back row.

Abe would only pay them $50.00 for each complete car that they sold us.

Then it became my job getting the cars running and back to our car lot located in Stamford.

Every car I could get running went on sale on our used car lot for $199.00.

The cars that I couldn’t fix were sold at a loss of $15.00 each to a metal scrap yard located in Bridgeport Connecticut.

I thought it was a great job, and we never ran out of customers that were looking for inexpensive transportation, and I also learned how to fix just about every kind of car problem.

Every morning, Abe, who lived in Riverside New York, would bring an associate to work with him.

Abe’s friend’s name was Eichel Blumenstock, Eichel was 86 years old and he lived in the Bronx in New York.

Abe told me that Eichel had once been the biggest Michelin tire distributor in all of Germany.

That was until Hitler arrested and imprisoned him and his family.

Fortunately, Eichel escaped from prison in Germany and made his way to Palestine where he met Abe.

Then many years later, Abe and Eichel’s families immigrated into the United States, and they always remained close friends.

At first, every morning, Abe would pick up and drive Eichel to work and then bring him home to his apartment in the Bronx in the evening.

Abe did this for a few weeks until Eichel started driving home with various cars from our used car lot.

When I first met the highly religious Eichel Blumenstock, he was a little hunched over, but he still managed to talk to customers, fill out the sale bills, and collect the money.

Abe and I trusted him implicitly.

At the end of our second month, Abe asked me if I would do the car lot’s books.

It was a simple affair because there were only 5 or 6 columns.

A column for what we bought, a column for what we scraped, a column for what we had on the lot, and a column of what we had sold, and then there was a column for our expenses.

Everything was going smoothly with me doing the books until I realized about seven cars were missing.

I called Abe over and told him about the missing cars.

At first Abe asked me if I thought someone was stealing them.

Then Abe got serious and in a stern voice he said, “Eichel where are the missing cars”?

Eichel replied “I left them all on the highway in the Bronx Abe”.

It appears that Eichel being a devote Jew, could not do anything mechanical after sundown on the Sabbath.

So, every Friday, at sundown, if Eichel, found himself stuck in traffic, he would simply get out of the car he was driving, take off our Connecticut “DEALER” license plate. Then he would put the license plate in his jacket pocket and walk home even if it took him all night.

It appears that Eichel would just abandon whatever car he was driving, leaving it sitting on the highway right in the middle of all the traffic

After that, Abe started driving Eichel home again on Fridays.

Abe said we couldn’t be mad at Eichel leaving the cars on the highway because God was on Eichel’s side.