photo by Brent Fleuryby Jess McCuan

Detroit’s Big Three automakers may have all but collapsed in a heap, and auto sales nationwide have been in a slump for a solid year. But we still need our cars tuned up and repaired—good news for auto garages and lube shops everywhere—and believe it or not, some people in WNC are still buying the occasional new car. “We didn’t see as much pickup in the spring, but we did see it in May and June,” says Pat Grimes, owner and manager of Harry’s on the Hill, a GM dealership in Asheville. She notes that year-over-year sales figures for domestic vehicles statewide are still down by as much as 40 to 50 percent. “Considering this economy, we’re optimistic,” she says. In such an uneasy time for the car business, VERVE took a closer look at three local women who have driven, sold and repaired cars through recessions past and seem to be cruising through the current one.

photo by Rimas ZailskasPamela Hanson, 58
Sales consultant, Deal MotorCars of Asheville

When you sell Porsches and Audis, you have to know at least a little about horsepower and torque. But you don’t necessarily need to be a gearhead, says Pam Hanson, who sells around ten to 12 cars in a good month. Since Asheville is, on the whole, “not a suit-and-tie town,” you don’t really need to wear a suit to sell fancy cars either. In fact, macho as a Porsche may seem, it can be an advantage to be a female salesperson, she says. “Overall, the biggest thing to realize is that, women are, in the end, the decision makers—the yes or no person,” she says.

Hanson, who has loved cars all her life, says she switched to car sales from a marketing career in 1991 because it was a good excuse to spend more time reading Road & Track magazine. She’s currently the only female salesperson at Deal MotorCars, an Asheville Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche dealership, and people do occasionally mistake her for a greeter or a receptionist. But more and more, at her own dealership and others, she says, men have gotten used to buying cars from women and vice versa.

Whether Americans are in the mood to buy cars at all is another matter. After a slow winter, Hanson is happy to report that the dealership’s foot traffic has picked up in recent months. Her main obstacle is battling the stereotype that car salespeople are untrustworthy. Often, customers start out defensive. “People think they’re going to say something ‘wrong’ that will allow me to take advantage of them,” she says. She believes the key to selling in any industry is to show adequate enthusiasm. Porsche, Volkswagen and Audi cars are made by German companies, and Hanson, who drives an Audi A4 Quattro, seems genuinely enthused about all things Bavarian. She lived in Germany for three years as a teenager and would like to someday go back. She could see herself in a picturesque German city like Wiesbaden, on the bank of the Rhine River, where she would spend her days not selling cars but driving them on the  Autobahn.

photo by Brent FleuryLee Hamilton, 56
Service advisor, Fletcher BMW

One day when Lee Hamilton was working in her dad’s engine repair shop, Hamilton’s Recapping and Marine, a man stopped by to pick up his chainsaw. The shop, in the tiny town of Laurens, South Carolina, employed around 15 people, mostly men, who worked on everything from boat motors to bicycles and household appliances. Lee, then 22, happened to be alone in the shop when the man stopped by for his chainsaw, so she picked up the saw, filled it full of gas, and started it up. “That man’s eyes got as big as they could be,” Hamilton recalls, laughing. “He thought—a woman with a chainsaw. I better get out of here.”

Hamilton, who lives in Horse Shoe, says she learned most of what she knows about cars and customer service from her dad. She’s been working as a service advisor for dealerships for 15 years, first in South Carolina, then Tennessee, then at Skyland Automotive in West Asheville. One of her dad’s cardinal rules when dealing with a disgruntled customer was to speak calmly. “If you’re calm, [the customer] will start calming down,” she says. “Dad was always good about that. He never said ‘hello.’ He answered the phone with ‘All right.’” Such tactics come in handy at her current job as service advisor at the BMW of Asheville dealership in Fletcher, where she spends long hours juggling paperwork, making appointments and taking calls from customers who want a quick prognosis on the problem with their car. “I’m the go-between,” she says. She spends most of her day translating “mechanicspeak” into plain language. Since most new cars are highly computerized, the trouble usually involves programming and software. “It’s not like the shop in somebody’s backyard,” she says. “It’s hard for people to understand that a glitch in your computer will make other things in your car go wrong.”   

photo by Brent FleuryMelissa Fazzalaro, 28
Technician and assistant manager, Valvoline Instant Oil Change
If she can get her hands on a gadget long enough to take it apart, she can probably fix it and put it back together. Growing up in Fort Pierce, Florida, Melissa Fazzalaro was the neighborhood girl who could break down lawnmower engines, remote controls, electronic toothbrushes, you name it. She even once fixed a mechanical cat-poop scooper. Shortly after she moved to Asheville eight years ago, she bought a classic automotive fixer-upper, a 1966 Pontiac Star Chief Executive. A rare model, the Star Chief Executive is a low-slung boat of a car with three distinctive chrome stripes on the back. Fazzalaro’s is maroon and didn’t run when she bought it. But she remedied that after tinkering with the wiring for about a year. “The day I fixed it, it was like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders,” says the West Ashevillean. “I fell in love with that car. I like to drive around town and honk at people.”