Distinguished Flying Cross Calvin Coolidge Worthington (November 27, 1920 – September 8, 2013) was an American car dealer, best known in Southern California and other locations along the West Coast of the United States for his offbeat radio and television advertisements for his Worthington Dealership Group, a car dealership chain that covered the western and southwestern U.S. at its peak, and later for his minor appearances and parodies in a number of movies.
According to a profile published in The Sacramento Bee in 1990, Worthington grossed $316.8 million in 1988, making him at the time the largest single owner of a car dealership chain.
He sold automobiles from 1945 until his death and owned a 24,000-acre (9,700 ha; 38 sq mi) ranch located in Orland, California, around 100 miles north of Sacramento.
Worthington was awarded the Air Medal five times, and received the Distinguished Flying Cross, which was presented to him by General Jimmy Doolittle.
Worthington's military service was frequently revisited in the 21st century in aviation magazines, since he had trained pilots who would become some of America's first astronauts.
He then sold used cars in front of the post office in Corpus Christi, making a folksy pitch to people who stopped to pick up their mail.
A regular on the show was the flamboyant and eccentric singer and Hawaiian guitar player Jenks "Tex" Carman.
One of Worthington's rivals in the early 1960s was Chick Lambert, a well-known salesman with Brand Motors Ford City.
The physical reach of the Worthington Dealership Group would eventually cover a large portion of the southwestern and western United States.
Among the markets served by Worthington included Anchorage, Alaska; Phoenix, Arizona; Carlsbad, Claremont, Folsom, Long Beach, Sacramento and South Gate, California; Reno, Nevada; Houston and Sugar Land, Texas; and Federal Way, Washington.
[10] The company entered the Anchorage market at a frenzied time in 1976, during the height of the construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System.
These commercials invariably began with "I'm Chick Lambert, Sales Manager here at Ralph Williams Ford, and this is my dog, Storm."
Worthington's commercials were seen on every television channel in Los Angeles throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, mostly through saturation advertising during the overnight hours.
"[11] Among the many creatures that were featured as "Spot" were a killer whale from SeaWorld, a lion, an elephant, a goose, a tiger, a bull, various snakes, a rhinoceros, a skunk, a bear, a roller-skating chimpanzee, a carabao (water buffalo), and a hippopotamus.
[7] In some commercials, Worthington would claim he would do a stunt for a sale, such as eating a bug or "stand upon my head 'til my ears are turning red."
[citation needed] In 2023, the Worthington family sold it's last car dealership, the original Long Beach location, to concentrate on commercial real estate and agriculture.