‘I just trust him.’ Watson’s car lot finds a niche on Kansas City’s Prospect Avenue
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Vernon Rose has bought so many cars from Watson’s Auto Wholesale he can’t even count them all.
He’s a car guy, who doesn’t keep a ride for too long before replacing it with something different. Rose, an HVAC technician who lives in the Northland, comes to Watson’s because of the fair pricing and reliability of the cars.
He once bought a Mercedes at the small lot on Prospect Avenue that began to have problems six months later. A mechanic diagnosed a bad transmission that would require thousands to repair. Rose brought the car back to the lot, where owner Marcus Watson has been selling cars since 2004.
“He told me, ‘Hey man, pick something else,’” Rose said. “It’s just that simple. And it was an as-is car. I can’t avoid dealing with him because of the truthfulness and the upfrontness.”
Rose has previously bought cars at big dealerships, the ones with billboards and television commercials. He recalled one experience that left a bad taste in his mouth: the salesman was moving so fast that he was confused about the actual terms of the deal. What he thought was a four-year financing agreement was actually five years.
He’s never had to worry about those sorts of issues at Watson’s, where the prices are set below Kelley Blue Book values and negotiations are fuss free.
“Marcus is very upfront,” he said. “No games. No surprises. Everything’s explained.”
Watson says he has built a niche by serving mostly minority buyers who may not always feel comfortable at other dealerships. Before he got into the business, he had salesmen at other lots tried to push him into lower-end cars, even when he was eyeing other, more expensive models.
“They would want to give me what they thought I should drive, what they thought I should be in,” Watson said. “I get a lot of customers that tell me that same thing. They’ll come here and see a car they didn’t think they could afford.”
A passion for cars
A Raytown native, Watson first started selling cars as a freshman at Missouri Western State University in St. Joseph.
His mentor, longtime East Side car salesman William Ruffin, took him to wholesale car auctions, which are closed to the general public, to find cars. Ruffin gave him copies of the Kelley Blue Book, which set benchmarks for prices of used cars. He showed him how to inspect auction cars and find those with potential.
He would regularly come back to Kansas City to go to auction, picking up a car or two. In St. Joseph, he would bring those cars to parking lots around campus and post for-sale signs on the windshields.
After first selling a 1986 Pontiac Firebird, Watson estimates he sold about 30 used cars during his three years at Missouri Western. He made about $400 to $500 per car, enough to cover college expenses.
Watson left school to start working for AT&T at its call center in Lee’s Summit. But his position there was cut in a mass layoff, forcing him to make a change.
It didn’t take long for him to find his way back to cars.
Watson found an abandoned lot on 68th and Prospect, not far from Research Medical Center. The owner agreed to rent the plot to him and eventually agreed to sell it.
Since he opened in 2004, the car industry, like so many others, has been transformed by the internet. Numerous websites make it easy to compare the prices and specifics of used cars across multiple dealerships.
Watson posts his inventory online and on Facebook, which lures in some customers. But he said most of his sales come from walk-in customers, repeat buyers and customer referrals.
“Used car salesmen have a bad name,” he said. “But I try my best to be fair.”
The three-employee crew at Watson’s racks up about $3 million a year in sales, he said.
“I’m at about 30 cars a month,” Waton said. “To be a small lot like this, that’s doing real good.”
The lot on Prospect
The car lot would be easy to miss save for the bright yellow house-turned-office at the back of the lot.
His inventory of about 30 to 40 cars is packed tight. There’s a huge variety in styles and prices, though he specializes in luxury makes. On a recent morning, he said the stock ranged from $4,000 to nearly $50,000.
Watson makes regular trips to the I-70 Auto Auction in Topeka to keep the inventory changing. But he still knows the numbers on every vehicle on the lot.
That gray Volkswagen over there?
It’s got 150,000 miles on it and is priced at $4,900.
The 2020 Denali across the lot has about 60,000 miles on it and is priced at about $49,000.
“Which is way below book,” he said. “Book is like $57,000.”
A few years ago, he decided to expand, opening another lot on the so-called Miracle Mile on Independence’s Noland Road, which is home to big name lots like Cable Dahmer Chevrolet and Metro Ford.
But the sales were nothing like they were on Prospect and he quickly closed that outpost to focus on the East Side lot. Since then, he’s been buying up nearby parcels and hopes to one day expand to occupy a whole block on Prospect.
“Luckily, I just found a niche here in my area and it’s been good,” Watson said. “Of course, with used cars you can’t please everybody. It’s almost impossible. But in 18 years, I’ve probably had two or three bad reviews.”
Watson does plenty of cash deals. On financed deals, he relies on outside lenders, including those who offer subprime loans, which charge a higher interest rate for borrowers with poor or limited credit histories.
Some of those interest rates can go as high as 21%, Watson said, particularly if buyers have recently experienced credit-busting events like bankruptcy or foreclosure.
While those rates can parallel credit card interest rates for some buyers, Watson said he tries to counsel people to make wise decisions. For some, it might mean paying a high-interest car note for a year to establish a good payment history and then try to refinance. For others, it might mean buying something less expensive than what they initially had eyed.
“He gave me the game plan on how to do it,” said Paul Sowell, who came to Watson’s in May with a subpar credit history.
Sowell, who drives a forklift at a local soda warehouse, said his credit was damaged from poor financial decisions of his youth. He couldn’t remember the exact interest rate he landed when purchasing his 2007 Cadillac Escalade, but said Watson went out of his way to find him the most favorable terms.
“He did the best that he could, especially with my credit being where it was,” he said. “I can’t be mad at that at all. My payment rate is beautiful. I was expecting and willing to pay more.”
When Sowell arrived on the lot, he spotted an Escalade right away. But Watson urged him to wait for another model he had in the detail shop.
“He was really trying to look out,” he said. “He knew my taste, my flavor.”
Sowell views all used cars as a gamble, whether they’re purchased from a small lot like Watson’s or one of the giant dealerships.
“For me it’s all about who you can trust with your money,” he said. “I just trust him.”
This story was originally published November 21, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
