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The cornerstones of the philosophy that in the 1960s made Tasca Ford the model for thousands of other Ford Motor Company dealerships across the country.
It was Bob Tasca Sr. who in the 1960s coined the phrase "win on Sunday, sell on Monday."
The Tasca Ford was driven to victory at the 1965 NHRA Winternationals by Bill Lawton.
Tasca's philosophy is spelled out in his book "You Will Be Satisfied." The man responsible for Ford's muscle car program in the 1960s, a program that included the 1968 Cobra Jet Mustang.
Initially hired as a 40 cent-an-hour mechanic, Tasca wound up running with a crowd that included Henry Ford II, Lee Iacocca and Carroll Shelby. Although he earned a Ph.D. in engineering from Roger Williams University, the skills that created the first Ford dealership to be No. 1 in BOTH sales volume and customer satisfaction were developed on the street.
"Bob Tasca was not a smart man," he said, referring to himself in the third person. "Bob Tasca learned from a lot of very, very smart people at Ford, basically because I asked a lot of questions and remembered most of the answers."
From 17-year-old "grease monkey" at Sandager Ford in 1943, Tasca climbed the ladder, becoming sales manager in 1948 and General Manager in 1949. Four years later, he opened his own dealership, making complete customer satisfaction his main selling point.
Despite his sales success, Tasca became concerned in the early 1960s that FoMoCo was being upstaged by the "muscle cars" being developed by General Motors and Chrysler.
As a result, he commissioned Holman & Moody to build a 406-powered 1962 Ford Galaxie that chief mechanic John Healy immediately drove to 13.30 second quarter mile times, a performance impressive enough to cause Lawton to abandon the Chevy 409 with which he had been taunting Tasca and join the blue oval brigade.
With Lawton, Tasca was at the forefront of the development of the 427-powered 1964 Ford Fairlane that became known as the "Thunderbolt." In 1966, at Tasca's behest, Holman & Moody built the first long-nose, altered wheelbase, match race Mustang, the precursor to today's Funny Cars. It was called the "Mystery 9" Mustang because of its 9-second quarter mile times. The number subsequently was altered to reflect eight and seven second times.
Finally, in 1968, Tasca Ford built the Cobra Jet prototype that would become what Tasca called "the fastest production-built car in the world at that point. I'm not talking top speed, "I'm talking run fast, get up and go. It was a 12-second street machine in the 1960s."
Now, with his name prominently emblazoned on John Force's Mustang as well as on those of Pedregon and Densham, Tasca Ford has come full circle. Win on Sunday. Win on Monday.
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