Ray, 81, still going strong at Adams Toyota

As nice as the shiny new Toyotas looked in the recently renovated Adams Toyota in Lee’s Summit, namesake owner Ray Adams wanted to show off an area at the dealership that really sparkles.

Adams, who has been selling Toyotas since 1970, walked to the service area where the technicians work in a clean environment, and to the waiting room that has all the comforts of home.

Simply put, everything is sparkling clean – even where cars drive in to be serviced. A couple of employees, using cleaning machines, go over the floors to keep them clean.

“This,” Adams said with a smile, “is my pride and joy.”

And every car that has been worked on leaves Adams Toyota washed.

“It is not only fixed, it is clean,” said Adams, 81. “We have been doing it for years. We wash every car that comes in. That is part of the pride in ownership. We want you to be proud of that car.

“We don’t think it is nice to have a $300, $400 repair, and you give them a dirty car back. It is whole lot better if it is nice and clean.”

Giving good service, Adams said, is the key to any successful automobile dealership.

“Once we service your Toyota, we will soon be servicing your Ford or your Dodge or whatever,” said Adams, whose dealership is at 501 NE Colbern Road in Lee’s Summit. “Service and service retention is the secret of a continuing business. That is certainly why we have been here, approaching 50 years.”

For longtime residents of Kansas City, Adams is an icon in the car dealership world, especially when it comes to Toyota and televisions commercials that feature him.

Through the years, he has been involved in just about every manufacturer, from Ford to Chevrolet to Chrysler and several others.

Toyota, though, has always been the staple. It started back in 1969 when Adams was a salesman at a Volkswagen dealership on Noland Road in Independence.

“I thought there is a car that doesn’t sell for very much,” Adams said. “It was beginning to be popular with young college kids.

“From the time I went there, they had a deal if you were the top salesman of the month, you would get a nice cash bonus and they would give you a billboard on Noland Road. It said, ‘Volkswagen Salesman of the Month, Ray Adams.’ The first time I got my name up there was nice. People drove by it. For two years, I was top salesman of the month for them.”

In 1969, Adams was the No. 1 Volkswagen salesman in the United States.

“I got a lot of accolades for that,” Adams said.

His success caught the attention of Toyota officials in Chicago. They asked him if he would be interested in becoming a Toyota dealer.

“I didn’t know who they were,” Adams said.

Adams was thinking about buying the Volkswagen dealership where he worked, but the deal fell through.

“It is time to talk to the Toyota guys again,” he said. “If I would build them a new pilot store and only be exclusive Toyota, they would award me the franchise for really no money. I just had to buy some parts and a sign.”

Adams broke ground in Raytown in 1969, and the first Toyota dealership in the Kansas City area opened in 1970.

“I thought it was going to be the car of the future,” Adams said. “I just became Mr. Toyota.”

Adams said it was about being himself. He knew it was going to be a challenge selling a car made in Japan in Ford and Chevy country.

“I became a personality, introducing a car to an area where people are pretty much all union,” Adams said. “They didn’t know Japanese cars and didn’t care for them, particularly.

“What I realized was I had to become the face of Toyota. I had been here all my life. I went to school (William Chrisman) here so I adapted. I am your friendly hometown neighbor who lives down the street. I am going to sell it and I’m going to fix it if anything goes wrong.”

Adams said he and his wife of 58 years, Carole, realized they were introducing a new product in this town that people knew nothing about.

They went about business following the Golden Rule. They refused to believe what some people told them, that Christians can’t sell cars.

“We want to treat everybody as they come through the door just like we want to be treated if we were coming through the door,” Adams said. “That is not that hard.

“People do not mind paying a fair price to have work done fairly. What they don’t like is paying a high price for stuff they don’t need. You need to be transparent in your business and build it that way.”

It is a family business that Adams is proud of. His son, Scott Adams, has been part of the car dealership world, too.

“I didn’t buy other dealerships until Scott got out of college and started working and we began to expand from one store around 1990,” Adams said. “We enjoy it. He was raised in it. He was learning to drive when we were building the first store. He embraced it as the family business. My wife also worked in the business as a cashier.”

Adams Toyota moved to Lee’s Summit in 2000. It is easy to see that Adams enjoys selling cars now as much now as he did in commercials from three to four decades ago.

“It is my life,” Adams said. “There is nothing more satisfying in any job you have than to like it. I just enjoy being what I am, running a successful car dealership in my town and being part of the community.”

This story was originally published October 30, 2015 at 7:04 PM with the headline "Ray, 81, still going strong at Adams Toyota."