A JCW Show Special: John Clay Wolfe on Our American Stories with Lee Habeeb

Summary

Detailed Summary of "The John Clay Wolfe Show Special: John Clay Wolfe on Our American Stories with Lee Habeeb"

Release Date: December 17, 2024

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Introduction

In this special episode of "The John Clay Wolfe Show," host John Clay Wolfe shares his inspiring journey on "Our American Stories" with Lee Habeeb. The conversation delves into John’s early passion for automobiles, his entrepreneurial endeavors, personal hardships, and the creation of GiveMeTheVin.com, one of the largest car wholesalers globally. This comprehensive summary captures the essence of John’s story, highlighting key moments, insights, and lessons learned along the way.

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1. Early Passion for Cars and Family Influence ([00:55] - [09:14])

John Clay Wolfe’s fascination with cars began in his childhood, heavily influenced by his environment and family. He recounts an early memory of a friend whose parents, possibly involved in illicit activities, owned extravagant vehicles—a Countach and a Rolls-Royce—that left a lasting impression on him.

John Clay Wolfe [00:55]: "I always paid more attention to cars than I should have."

John’s first beloved vehicle was a 1988 K5 Blazer, a step up from a 1977 model his grandfather gifted him. This car became a symbol of his burgeoning passion for automotive customization.

John Clay Wolfe [00:55]: "That's yours. Happy birthday. I was just floored."

He describes how his father supported his interest by surprising him with a new K5 Blazer. Despite initial restrictions from his father regarding modifications, John’s enthusiasm led him to personalize the vehicle extensively, earning him admiration in his high school community.

John Clay Wolfe [08:45]: "I had the best car in the high school parking lot for sure."

2. Family Business and Core Values ([09:14] - [10:53])

John’s upbringing was rooted in the family’s construction business, founded by his grandfather. He highlights the strong work ethic and responsibility instilled in him from a young age, thanks to his father and grandfather’s relentless dedication.

John Clay Wolfe [09:14]: "You've got to know when to tap the brakes in business."

An anecdote about his grandfather teaching him the importance of being able to stop underscores the foundational values that shaped John’s approach to business and life.

3. Entrepreneurial Ventures and Early Success ([10:53] - [20:05])

Facing financial hardships as his family’s construction company went bankrupt, John made the difficult decision to leave college and abandon his dream of playing football at SMU. Instead, he channeled his entrepreneurial spirit into the hospitality industry by opening bars with a friend, quickly turning them into profitable ventures.

John Clay Wolfe [10:53]: "We were making $100,000 a year a piece within months."

His keen eye for business led him to the wholesale car industry, where he embraced the philosophy that "there are no bad cars, there are just bad prices." This mindset propelled him to significant success, laying the groundwork for his future endeavors.

John Clay Wolfe [14:00]: "There are no bad cars, there are just bad prices."

4. Overcoming Personal and Financial Challenges ([20:05] - [30:00])

John’s life took a tumultuous turn when personal issues, including his wife’s drug addiction, led to his paralysis from the waist down due to a motocross accident. Concurrently, financial crises emerged as internal fraud by his controller resulted in a $2.2 million deficit, threatening his business empire.

Determined to save his businesses, John pivoted to radio, aspiring to emulate Howard Stern. He launched a radio show that intertwined his automotive expertise with engaging content, attracting support from dealerships and revitalizing his car wholesale business.

John Clay Wolfe [21:00]: "I'm going to be the next Howard Stern. I'm going to start this radio show."

Innovating within the car industry, John pioneered the concept of purchasing cars sight unseen from the public, leveraging technology to facilitate transparent and trustworthy transactions. This approach differentiated his business from traditional dealers and laid the foundation for GiveMeTheVin.com.

John Clay Wolfe [28:00]: "The averages outrun it. So just do more of it."

5. Building GiveMeTheVin.com and Achieving Unprecedented Success ([30:00] - [End])

Despite the physical and financial hurdles, John’s relentless determination led to the creation of GiveMeTheVin.com. His innovative strategies and ethical business practices enabled the company to grow exponentially, achieving $2 billion in sales two years prior to the podcast.

John shares the remarkable milestone of selling 1700 cars in a single day, setting a Guinness World Record and cementing his status as a leading figure in the automotive wholesale industry.

John Clay Wolfe [30:00]: "We broke a Guinness Book of World record selling like 1700 cars in one day."

He reflects on his journey with humility, emphasizing the fulfillment derived from his success and the importance of resilience in overcoming adversity.

John Clay Wolfe [30:00]: "It's nice to have success. It's nice to be secure. That's really what all this is about."

6. Personal Fortitude and Continuing Legacy ([30:00] - [End])

John discusses his ongoing battle with paralysis, highlighting his efforts to remain active and engaged in his business despite physical limitations. His determination to walk without relying on a wheelchair symbolizes his broader approach to life and business—constantly striving for progress and maintaining control over his destiny.

John Clay Wolfe [30:00]: "I'd rather not go anywhere than use a wheelchair. And I got everything I wanted back."

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Conclusion

John Clay Wolfe’s story is a testament to the power of passion, resilience, and ethical entrepreneurship. From his early days enamored with cars to overcoming personal and financial challenges, John’s journey embodies the spirit of American entrepreneurialism. His ability to innovate and adapt, particularly through the creation of GiveMeTheVin.com, showcases his enduring commitment to excellence and integrity in business. This episode underscores the importance of traditional values, hard work, and the relentless pursuit of one's dreams, offering invaluable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs and listeners alike.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Early Passion for Cars

  • John Clay Wolfe [00:55]: "I always paid more attention to cars than I should have."
  • John Clay Wolfe [00:55]: "That's yours. Happy birthday. I was just floored."

• Family Values

  • John Clay Wolfe [09:14]: "You've got to know when to tap the brakes in business."

• Entrepreneurial Success

  • John Clay Wolfe [10:53]: "We were making $100,000 a year a piece within months."
  • John Clay Wolfe [14:00]: "There are no bad cars, there are just bad prices."

• Overcoming Challenges

  • John Clay Wolfe [21:00]: "I'm going to be the next Howard Stern. I'm going to start this radio show."
  • John Clay Wolfe [28:00]: "The averages outrun it. So just do more of it."

• Achieving Success

  • John Clay Wolfe [30:00]: "We broke a Guinness Book of World record selling like 1700 cars in one day."
  • John Clay Wolfe [30:00]: "It's nice to have success. It's nice to be secure. That's really what all this is about."

• Personal Fortitude

  • John Clay Wolfe [30:00]: "I'd rather not go anywhere than use a wheelchair. And I got everything I wanted back."

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This structured summary provides a comprehensive overview of John Clay Wolfe’s compelling narrative, capturing the key elements of his life and career as shared in the podcast episode. The inclusion of notable quotes with timestamps offers direct insights into his experiences and philosophies, making the summary both engaging and informative for those who haven't listened to the episode.

Transcript

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[Narrator]

And we return to our American stories. Up next, a story from one of the largest car wholesalers in the world and the host of the John Clay Wolf show. We're talking about John Clay Wolf. Here's John to tell the story of his love of all things automotive and how through the worst of circumstances, he created Give me the vintage calm. Take it away, John.

[John Clay Wolf]

I always paid more attention to cars than I should have. A friend of mine in grade school, I think his parents were drug dealers really because his dad drove a countach and this is probably 1980 and his mom drove a Rolls. Now they both went to jail, but the cars really stuck out to me. My first car that I loved, loved, loved was a 1988 K5 Blazer. It was a newer version of the 1977 K5 Blazer that my grandfather gave me the keys to when I was about nine that I drove around on the ranch. And that's what I learned to drive in was a 77K5. And that was going to be my first car with my license. So I had this whole list of modifications I wanted to do to it and I showed it to my dad and it was lift wheels, tires, winch, all the stuff I saw in 4x4 magazines that I always grabbed when I was at the newsstand. And he surprised me with a new one. He was like, hey, we gotta go by Wayne Bell's ranch and look at a horse. And Wayne Bell is the guy that owned a company called Western Hauler. And Western Hauler was one of the first conversion cowboy Cadillac companies that ever was. Wayne and my father both were into dressing up their dually trucks. They were in the horse world cutting horses. So they were always trying to out compete each other with how they could dress up their Dooleys. And Wayne was in the car business. He owned a Chevy store. So he's like, hey, we gotta go buy Wayne Bell's place and look at a horse. I'm like, whatever, I did this all the time. So on the way back from work, we stopped at Wayne's and he went in there and was messing with the horses and there was this white K5 Blazer sitting out by the barn and had a window sticker. 16,373 was the window sticker price. And I was just sitting there licking the paint off of that thing. And, you know, he's like, come in here, look at this horse. Like, no, I'm looking at this truck. And I was just dying, you know, in love with it. And then I went in and messed with the horses with him. We came back out and I was getting in his car. He said, what are you doing? I'm like, we're going home. He's like, yeah, you're in the wrong car. I'm like, what do you mean? He said, that's yours. Happy birthday. I was just floored. You know, it's your first car, man. You just. It's your first real freedom ride. It just opens the door to the world, too. So I drove that truck home and put it in the garage, and I slept in it that night. Like, literally slept in the car. And I started messing with the radio. I took the speakers apart, I took the head unit out, I had my tools, and I started messing with it already. And he came out and he said, dude, I bought you this new one so you wouldn't do anything to it because you were going to build that other K5 Blazer. Daughter's old one. He said, I really don't want to mess with this one. I'm like, okay. And that lasted about two months. I got him to give me a lift for Christmas and put larger tires on it. And then the next thing I did was put wheels inside those tires. They're BF Goodrich all terrains, 33 by 1250s. And I put a stance on it. And then I cut the exhaust pipes off and put glass packs on it. And, man, it looked good. I had the best car in the high school parking lot for sure. Until my junior year, summer, and I was at my brother's house in Fort Worth and I heard it start up. And I looked out the window and I saw it drive off. I was so mad. So that would be the first car that I ever sold, which was sold to an insurance company. I've sold half a million cars since then. I was always wanting to be mobile. I was always wanting to leave the house and go somewhere. I was always tinkering. I was always moving, always. My parents were divorced when I was really young, like two or three. I don't even remember them married, but about fourth grade, I really wanted to live with my dad. He lived on a ranch, and it was just more Fun out there. So anyway, I moved out to the country with my dad. And in the mornings I would drive to his construction office and I had a couple of hours, hour and a half, before it was time to leave for school when I was about nine and I would start messing with his equipment. Then I started working on his jobs in the summertime and Christmas break and whatever break we had from school. And he would come out to those job sites when I was in fourth grade running that equipment and tell them to get me off that little piece and put me on that bigger piece of equipment. Dude, he's only 8 years old. He can do it better than you. Get out of my way. Who owns this company? John Clay. Get over here, get up there and do it. I mean, there was days when the operators for I'm talking huge equipment would like, not show up for work. And my dad would grab me out of school to go fill in for the guy. So that work ethic, that responsibility that I feel today, this has been going on forever. And it was a family business. And this construction company had like 300 employees. And my granddad started it from a bicycle running the wires. Is that Westinghouse? They would deliver messages, teletypes, between Southwestern Bell Telephone company offices from his bicycle. And that's what he started ABC Utility Construction with. And he built this thing up to a full service underground construction company that worked for the telephone company, the power company, the gas company. So I watched all that. I mean, not all of it. I watched the part of it that I was alive for and watched him work crazy hard and have crazy success, and it was very inspiring. And my grandfather, Wolf, you know, he's the one that, like, was making me Drive at 8 years old. We would go through gates. He was like, keep going. Quit crawling. Go through it. I remember I hung a fender on the gate one day. I was just crying. I just knew I was dead. You know, he's like, it's okay. And he would push me to do things that I wasn't comfortable to do. And if I made mistakes he didn't, you know, beat me up about. And I remember one thing that was real important to him is that I had the ability to stop. If you're driving, you better be able to stop. And he's like, when I say stop at any time, you stop. Show me you can stop. We were driving down the road and I was going about 30 miles an hour, and he said, stop. And I mean, I just laid on and threw him into the dash and he hit his head on the windshield started bleeding. And I looked at him, I'm like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. He said, no, son, you did exactly what I told you to do. Now I know you can stop. I still do that with my kids. When I take them out riding dirt bikes and teach them how to ride four wheels and stuff, I yell at them, stop. I mean, if you can't stop, then you can't be safe. And that goes along with a lot of things. You've got to know when to tap the brakes in business. You've got to know when to be able to pull back and stop when things are getting out of control. I mean, I'm in the middle right now of a $20 million buy of a gazillion sprinter vans. And the excitement of the money potential is wonderful. But I keep hitting the brakes on the deal to make sure we're following my guidelines and rules of being careful and not getting screwed. When you're doing a deal that big, it's so easy to be like, yeah, yeah, everything's great, but you always have to look at it with an evil eye. How do I get hurt here? How do we get screwed? Wire fraud, trade fraud, title fraud. You just have to be able to be reserved and don't let the greed or excitement get in front of you, where you go make a big mistake. Being a liar and a crook and a sneaky and tricky. Yeah, there's plenty of people that are successful financially from that. But the guys that had good teams around them and really built something, they had integrity. I had an opportunity to work when I was 18 at Ford in Fort Worth, and I went there as a salesman and went through their salesman training, where they taught people how to lie, which is really. I mean, that's not what they said. But when you're looking at what's going on in the manipulation tactics they were teaching salespeople, I'm like, there's a better way to do this. You can do this without lying. And I was there for three months, and I was. I was salesman of the month my third month. But I wasn't lying. Like, I was just being more straightforward. And here's the price. And I'd get in trouble for it, too. I'd get written up. Cause I. They wanted to get you on payments so that they could manipulate the payments and forget about the price. Cause the price and the payments obviously add up together. But if you can focus the customer on the payment ranges, then they agree to this payment, and they sign off on this payment. Then when they get to the back room, the price is high. I was like, man, that's. Sorry, that's just not who I am. You can tell these people the truth and not have to do that. Do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it. And that's hard to find in any car dealer at this time. Even worse back then.

[Narrator]

And you've been listening to John Clay Wolf tell his story and in his own way, his family's story brought up on solid, traditional American values, Texas values, in the end, old school values of hard work, risk taking. And my goodness, that grandfather of his, he said he pushed me to do things and didn't beat me up when I made a mistake. What a wonderful, wonderful grandfather. And my goodness, his father buys him that car. The car gets stolen. And the first car he ever sells, as he put it, was to an insurance company. And by the way, when his dad bought him that new car, he was hoping his son wouldn't modify it. Ah, hopes. And what did he do? He did exactly what he would do the rest of his life. Be obsessed with automobiles. I love that line about be able to stop. Be able to stop. Entrepreneurs and any other type of daredevil, risk takers who can't stop are a danger to themselves and everybody around them. When we come back, more of the story of John Clay Wolf, the Howard Stern of cars, here on our American Stories. And we return to our American stories. And with John Clay Wolf, the host of the John Clay Wolf show and the founder of one of the largest car wholesalers in the world. GiveMeTheVin.com when we last left off, John was telling us about how his love for cars started at an early age, but he never thought he'd make cars his career. Let's return to the story. Here again is John Clay Wolf.

[John Clay Wolf]

I went to college broke. I went to college broke. I didn't realize I was broke. Dad wasn't telling me the complete truth. Dad went broke. That company that my grandfather built, it was going bankrupt. We didn't have money anymore and it was scary. I was going to play football at SMU. And I remember it was during two a days he gave me $100 bill. Two days of football. He gave me $100 bill. He said, this is probably the last hundred dollar bill I'm be able give you for a while. I'm out of money. You know, my dream was to be a big college football player. You want to make your parents proud, right? I mean, that was the common ground my dad and I had. We had work and we had football. But I'm like, I can't be here. I've got to go to work. So I quit football, man. I went in the bathroom and cried like a baby. They killed me to give up on that dream. But one of my best friends was at TCU and at SMU in Dallas, which is 45 minutes away. We had some really good bars. TCU did not have that. I'm like, carter, this would work at tcu. And his parents had just both died. His father killed his mother and killed himself. And Carter got a life insurance check. So I convinced him that we should open this bar at TCU. At that time, we were 19 or maybe 20. I don't remember. We weren't old enough. So I got one of my best friends that was 21 to own the stock of the company that was going to hold the liquor license. I gave him 400 to own the bar in Carter. He had advisors that were handling his estate from his parents death. They came over there, and we were working on. They're like, do you know what the success rate on bars and restaurants are? It's like, negative. This will not work. You're going to lose your money. And I'm like, don't listen to them. This is going to work fine. He was in the best fraternity on campus. The Kappa Sigs at TCU are basically going to have their own bar. This place is going to be packed. It's going to work like a champ. And it did. Carter and I opened this bar on 50 grand. It was our junior year, and it paid itself off in 90 days. And then we were making $100,000 a year a piece within months. And then we put a guy next to us out of business, and we bought that one. It was blast. It was wild. I mean, we. God, there were a lot of fights. Barrett Robbins, who was the center for the Raiders, he's the guy that missed the super bowl because he went to Tijuana and got so drunk the night before the super bowl, he was our bouncer. It turned into a fight pit, actually. We had to. We had to get Fort Worth PD to come be the bouncers. And then also, if you had a cop that you were paying to be your security guard, the TABC would leave you alone because the place was full of fake IDs. I mean, that's just the way college works. But it was worth, you know, paying $250 a night to a police officer to actually inspect the IDs because then you're off the hook and you're clean. But the girls were so pretty and the cops loved them that they were letting a lot of people in. You know, you just get these experiences, the knowledge. You do it enough, the old 10,000 hour rule and you start figuring things out. I could open the ice box at the bar at the end of the night and I could guess within $100 of how much money we ran on the register by the amount of ice we used. But I'll jump forward. So I started buying cars sight unseen from the public because I was in a wheelchair.

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[John Clay Wolf]

It's 96 and I'm like, I need to get in the Internet business. The bar life was great for a young man, but it was nothing for what I wanted to do. And I came up with a product that I patented called the Automated Telenet computer. It was a floating email system for business travelers, which back then you had to be at your desktop to get your email. I'm like, how do I get this thing sold? So I'm looking through Fortune magazine and on the COVID there was this guy, what was his name? Steve Appleton was on the COVID of Fortune magazine and he was on a Kawasaki KX250 motocross bike jumping. And I tried to reach Appleton and I couldn't get to him. So I started calling Simplot's office. J.R. simplot, who was the potato magnate of Idaho, he's an old man and he was the main investor in Micron. Couldn't get to him. Wound up sending flowers to the secretary twice. Broke her down, got her to get me on the phone with simplot. And this 80 year old man, 75 year old man, he's like, boy, I don't know the difference between microchips or potato chips, but I know somebody that's got some spirit and I'm going to get you up here and introduce you to these boys. So he sends his private jet down from Idaho, picks me up. I never even met the guy. I showed him what I had they said, cool, Big deal. We have, you know, a thousand patents. But I do like the idea and I like your spirit. Why don't you move up here? We'll work on the project. I was up there about eight months, and I opened up the Wall Street Journal. And there's my machine, front page, the Wall Street Journal right there. Larry Ellison from Oracle did it. I was like, it's over. They beat us to the punch because back then, these guys were getting wealthy off being first to market. So I loaded up the car and headed back to Fort Worth, back to a boiler room, talking to car dealers. My cousin had a car lot called Euro spec sales on Altamir, and it was junkie. And that's where the auction thing came on. And I went to the auction for the first time where you buy the cars for retail lot. And I was like, wow. I was pretty hooked right then. An auction floor is like a Chinese fish market with car dealers. It looks like the customs department at the Miami airport. I mean, everything. Indians, Persians, white boys, black boys, every kind of boy there is. The used car business is a smorgasbord of nationalities. I remember the first time I walked into the Dallas auction, and I walked down those steps, and Mercedes was running their factory sale, and I was watching these Mercedes sell one after the other. I bought a 1995 BMW 740i and we retailed it for like, I don't know, it made like five grand profit quick. I was like, okay, this is good. This makes sense. So I had a. I had the eye to go pick the right cars. Shane would buy cars for us, and they didn't sell very well. I would buy cars for us, and they sold very well. You know, an old wholesaler told me, there are no bad cars, There are just bad prices. And that's a true statement. And there's also the statement that there is an for every seat. And that is true, too. But it's your job as the trader to know what price to score them at. I was always good at estimating, and that was a strength that came on strong in this wholesale car business. Business kept getting better. I was a really successful guy. I had a hell of a twenties. I mean, I was one of the most, you know, financially successful guys of anybody I knew before I got hurt and I got down to my last 200 grand. Doesn't that. Don't, don't you feel so sorry for me. Poor guy got last. Down to his last 200 grand. But to do this car business thing, you've got to have money. I mean, I was so broke, I couldn't even get a checking account for business. What happened was, you know, I'm not going to blame it on my ex wife. I blame it on me. She got on drugs. She wouldn't tell me what was going on. I had no idea what was going on. She wouldn't talk to me. So all of a sudden, I'm living in this ranch, just unfinished, and I was kind of spilling my guts to this guy every evening. Like, I just don't know what's going on. I'm like, hey, dude, we've got to get this place finished. This is where I live. And I was living with him and having beers with him on the porch in the evenings. And I'm noticing he has a brand new STARTAC phone with an Internet connection. Like, where'd you get that? He said, oh, I just got it. Da, da, da. And the phone rang. His phone rang on it while I was holding the phone, and I didn't recognize the number. And I answered the number like him with. He had a Greek accent. I said, hello. And she said, is he still there? And right then I knew. I was like, darling, we've got a problem. I jumped on him and I whipped his butt pretty good, gave him a few stitches. He went on his merry way. But I was pretty distraught, to say the least. So my mind was gone. And I said, let's. I'm going to start riding dirt bikes again to get my mind off of it. I got to do something. So I went and practiced motocross a few times. And then that Sunday, I went out and raced at the Nakona race park and was passing a guy on the finish line jump and looped it out, landed on my butt and broke my L2 vertebrae burst fracture. And I remember laying there and, you know, the medics were all over me and they're like, like, if you'll just take my boots off, I can show you I can move my feet. Dude, we cut your boots off like five minutes ago. I was paralyzed from the waist down. At that moment, I had nothing. Zero.

[Narrator]

And when we come back, what happens next in John Clay Wolf's journey? We'll find out here on our American stories. And we continue with our American stories and the final portion of our story with John Clay Wolf, the host of the John Clay Wolf show and the founder of givemethevin.com one of the largest car wholesalers in the world. When we last left off, John's home life had been turned upside down. After his then Wife became addicted to drugs and left him. He'd then become paralyzed from the waist down.

[John Clay Wolf]

But.

[Narrator]

But that it would turn out would just be the tip of the iceberg. Let's return to the story.

[John Clay Wolf]

So mom dies, the dog dies, the wife takes off, we reconcile. I have the wreck. I'm paralyzed for life. She sends the papers back over. We're getting divorced. And I'm like, I've got to get back to work because I just bought Wolf Ford, Wolf Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, and Wolf Chevrolet. And I had this big wholesale company called inventory management specialist IMS. But the worst day was 9-21-05, when I was got a call from Chase Bank. Hey, John, it's Doug Eller, Chase Bank. Hey, what's going on? Hey, we've got a problem here. And we've been doing some research math, and it shows that you're two and a half million dollars overdrawn. I'm like, no, I'm not. They were saying that they saw a overflow in the system that looked like we were kiting money and I didn't know about it. And I had my office managers come out to the ranch and reconcile all of the checkbooks in front of me. And I'll never forget this. I'm in a wheelchair. All day long we're doing this. Each of them are working on their individual buckets. And at the end of the day, they were all done. And I went and looked at one of them and it showed, you know, negative 600,000. And I went and looked at the other one and it showed negative 800,000. I went, looked at the other one. It showed negative whatever. And the number was about negative 2.2 million. And I remember being very scared right then. I'm like, oh, my God, they're right. I told these ladies, like, hey, you should go ahead and go. We're good. I was so paranoid. I didn't want them to talk and compare numbers because they would know I was in so deep, you know, I was dead. And I was like, oh, my God, where'd all this money go? Where the hell did all this money go? And I couldn't figure it out. And then I did figure it out. It was very much like the nurse at the hospital that's going around saving everyone, but everyone keeps dying. She was my person because I couldn't walk, right? I couldn't even really go to the office. She was the person fixing all the problems that I was telling her to fix. But what I didn't realize is she was pumping the numbers, stealing from me while I was out and redistributing money to her lover. She's married. He's married. He owns a couple of car dealerships. He's gone broke, and she is keeping him alive with my company's money. It was pretty bad. And the controller didn't make the 941 payments for almost a year. So the IRS calls me again, this is wheelchair time. And say, hey, you realize you owe us $450,000? I'm like, on what? They're like, yeah, maybe 941 payments on Wolf for Dodge. I'm like, huh, Go research it again. Same thing. They're right. And that is the payment where you withhold the money from the employees taxes. That's called the trust account. And that's the money that the government can come take the clothes out of your closet and the paintings off your wall. So that's serious. And the banker at Herring Campbell Burgess, I said, we're bankrupt, but here's what we can do. I've got this airplane that's paid for. I've got this ranch that has a lot of equity in it. I've got this Chevy store that's got a lot of equity in it. And we can sell these properties off and gather back a lot of money and work out of the rest, or we can file bankruptcy and let someone else do it for us. And he said, no, no, no, no, no. Do it your way. He said, you can handle it way better than a bankruptcy can. Figure out a way to fix this mess. You've got that magic touch. And I knew that I had the gift of gab. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to be the next Howard Stern. I'm going to start this radio show. I'm going to fix this dealership with this radio show. I'm going to learn how to do this radio thing. And I would do the car thing, but I'd also do the Howard Stern thing. So it was kind of Howard Stern on cars. So I wound up going full time radio on the weekends with the car show, having dealerships help support it. And I was pitching the dealerships in the car show. I was so determined. Like, I made friends with the program director over email on a krldfm, the fan, big sports station, but we never could connect. And I literally went to the station one day, I saw somebody open the door and I snuck in before it closed and I lent my cripple back there and sat in his office and like, Gavin, Hey, I'm John Wolf. And it scared the hell out of him. How'd you get in here? I'm like, the door was open. He's like, what's going on, man? You know? And I start talking and tell them what I wanted to do. They wanted no more of the hot talk business. They wanted out. Stern had just made the move to Sirius XM from terrestrial. I think he got paid $90 million or something. So they did. Dude, if you want in this business, you better learn sports talk, because that's what we're doing. We're not doing that grab Sterny hot talk anymore. We're done with it. We can't sell it. The advertisers don't want it. Lose that out of your head if you want to do this. But we made a deal that day for me to start doing my Saturday show. And then it started growing and growing and growing, and the car thing was kind of coming back. I had no intention of getting that big into the wholesale business like I was before. And I could not get to the auctions anymore. But I had those big dreams of being a big business operator. So I had to figure out a way to get the cars coming to me. So customers were calling in, and I was giving them prices over the air, and they would show up. And if the car was close to what they described, I would pay for it. And I was bidding cars over the air and not doing the car dealer hustle, where I tell you, I'll give you 20 grand for it. You show up, and then I change it to 18. That's what all car dealers do. They can't help it. And I was given the 20 grand when it would show up. Unless it was grossly misdescribed, but rarely it was. And I was realizing I can buy cars from the public's description better than I'm buying cars from the dealer's description over the phone, because the dealers are liars so much. And the public might lie about things they don't realize because they have a scratch or a dent that they've been living with for a long time and they forgot it was there. But the dealers would lie intentionally for profit. And I was having more success buying these cars sight unseen from the public than I was from the dealers. So I'm like, okay, I need to broadband this. I need to do more of this. And I was explaining to my dealer friends what I was doing. They're like, you're crazy. I can't believe you're buying that car sight unseen without touching it. I'm like I'm imagine a casino. This is a shady look at it, but this is the comical look at it that I feel is really real. I'm putting money on the street with gamblers, and they're investing my money in cars that they're speculating on. But I didn't want to tell them what I was onto because the dealer space is so competitive, and if I bragged about it, they would start paying more attention and copy me. And the name Give me the vin, hadn't even started yet. But back then, the dealers, when we were sending each other cars to bid for each other, it was always, give me the vin, send me the vin, text me the vin. Because we could take these VIN numbers and drop them into a decoder, an app, and get valuations and Carfaxes and all that. So I'm like, why don't I just name the company, Give me the vin? And I went to a trademark attorney, I got the trademark, and I went ahead and got, give me the VIN, text me the VIN, send me the VIN. And then I went and got about 40 URLs around that send us the VIN, send the VIN. Because car dealers start stealing from you and they start trying to poach on your branding. I mean, Carvana completely copied me. They copied my whole questionnaire list online. They copied my short form. They copied my auto bid. They copied everything. And I knew they would do it, because I really believe this would work. I knew it would work. There's no question. And it did. Would we get lied to and screwed? Absolutely. But did the averages outrun it? Absolutely. So just do more of it. Here's your margin of error. Run with it. Score that in just like insurance companies do. I mean, insurance companies have losses, we have losses, we lose 25% of the time. They give me the bin. But, you know, we wound up being largest wholesaler in the world. We did $2 billion in sales two years ago, and now the banks are lined up wanting our business. It's pretty weird. It's the same people that turned me down, too, in the past. I mean, turn me down pretty hard. To be honest with you. There's one particular that came over to calling me the other day. And I mean, it took everything I had not to be a jerk like, hey, man, you remember that meeting 14 years ago when you told me to get the hell out of your office? I just wondering if you remember, because I remember we broke a Guinness Book of World record selling like 1700 cars in one day. 1700. I think it was 55 million. Maybe it's more than that. I forgot. And it is amazing to have reached this level starting at that little chicken crap car lot note lot on Altamir in Fort Worth, Texas. So that's fulfilling. It's nice to have success. It's nice to be secure. That's really what all this is about. Because I know what it's like to be broke. But let me, let me put some. Another entry in here. I don't know if there was one day that I walked again. I mean, it was so slow. I mean, like the first three steps or two steps that I took out of balance and fell on the bed, that would be the first steps I took. If you're ever around me, you'll always notice I'm touching something. I'm leaning against a car. I'm leaning against the countertop. I. I can walk from point A to point B, but when I get to point B, I have to have something to touch. I mean, the easy way around that is use a cane. But I don't want to use a cane. Do you want a wheelchair? Hell, no, I don't want a wheelchair. I work forever to get on that wheelchair. I'd rather not go anywhere than use a wheelchair. And I got everything I wanted back.

[Narrator]

And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling by our own Monty Montgomery. And a special thanks to John Clay Wolf, who's the host of the John Clay Wolf show and founder of give me the vin.com. and indeed, it's true, Carvana stole so much from him, but not before he had a big head start. And that's what business is all about. Being first is really important. That first mover advantage you get and then just, well, dealing with the averages, you win some and you lose some and factor those losses into the wins. What a great attitude about so many things, but mostly about his own life. And the humility and the ups and downs will give you that humility. And boy, does John Clay Wolf's story have some ups and some downs. I always paid more attention to cars than I should have is how he started the piece. And he's still paying attention to cars. Sold 1700 of them in a single day, making it a Guinness Book record. The story of John Clay Wolfe, the story of American entrepreneurialism here on our American Stories.