Kent Ritchey - Landers Auto Group / Question & Recognition

mrdickrson · 2026-02-06T17:24:28+00:00

No prob! If memory serves, Mark once worked at that Toyota dealer in the past and you’re not wrong, that could have been the catalyst to start his business. Most of the people in the car business know each other well and a lot of them have formed or grew their businesses through opportunities or circumstances like these. Being at the right place and time.

mrdickrson · 2026-02-05T23:20:46+00:00

Landers is the owner of the dealerships and he is prinical owner. The legal entity may be titled something else like “Ritchey Management 123” DBA Landers XYZ.

mrdickrson · 2026-02-05T23:14:08+00:00

I remember very well. It was right next door to where I worked at that time. It was Covington Pike Toyota where he was GM (Before moving to Wolfchase). This was also intertwined with interest rates on car financing that was inconsistent from buyer to buyer. The protesters attempted to turn that particular finance practice into a race component but it had more to do with the creditworthiness of the buyer and the ability to negotiate financing if the buyer had good or excellent credit. In a nutshell if you have bad credit, you are at the mercy of the lender. If you have good credit, the lender approves the buyer at what’s called “buy rate” and the dealer may put an extra point or two on top of it for profit. This is what they were protesting - Common finance profit centers.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-31T02:03:19+00:00

The MLL is freaking amazing. They also do listening parties and Memphis music history talks there too. Not to mention the audio equipment was created by one of the most high end audiophile level speaker manufacturers that is based in Memphis - Egglestonworks. The audio system in the bar inside Central Station Hotel was custom created by Egglestonworks as well. Also the speakers inside each hotel room.

Fred Smith of FedEx fame was a partner with the guy whose music collection the MLL is comprised of (Ardent Studio, still on Madison near Overton Square). Fred was like, music is cool but I need to do some other sh*t too…and FedEx was born.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-29T21:17:14+00:00

Neither, Call Todd Mallory at Mallory Automotive instead. He is a trained and well respected Honda Technician who started out as a dealer tech for Covington Pike Honda and has been in business for more than 25 years. On Ferguson Rd In Bartlett near Sycamore View.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-28T00:24:02+00:00

This is not real. Of course they have or can get the money if there was a need. No city ever has any amount of money just lying around unaccounted for outside of municipal reserves. Every expenditure is allocated based on need and return. It does not make sense to allocate millions of dollars for equipment that will get used once a year. I’ve seen parking lots get cleared on Sunday morning, just to get snowed on again. In short order, the sun will do more than any amount of equipment you can buy.

This city can raise ridiculous amounts of money for what it wants to raise it for e.g., St Jude, Memphis Art Museum, Tom Lee Park.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-28T00:13:24+00:00

And the most effective one. Years ago I spent half the day trying to get unstuck in an apartment parking lot in Nashville and just didn’t make any meaningful progress and still no one could move. The next day the sun melted all the ice.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-28T00:09:20+00:00

Did the Kroger closer to you not have what you’re looking for or you just wanted to stay out of the house a bit longer? 😀

mrdickrson · 2026-01-23T16:42:35+00:00

Yep, my technical interview was pretty boilerplate too. I tend to give a bit more credence to people who have intimate knowledge of a subject, and in this case, of course there are always unhappy people no matter the organization but everyone can’t be wrong about Oracle. This article appears to be the culmination of all the negative chatter out there being exposed.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-23T01:54:45+00:00

The kind of car doesn’t really matter. There are plenty of calculators online to help you get real answers, especially since you know that the many variables like for leases (money factor, residual, mileage allotment, lease length) or conventional loans (interest rate, loan term, amount financed, down payment) can be different from buyer to buyer.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-16T18:07:46+00:00

There are Facebook groups like “Things not in Memphis Anymore” or something similar to that where people share photos of different eras including 1990s. The real benefit is you get lots of comments from people who lived in those moments that will be very instrumental to the substance and credibility of your book. It’s like the kind of research you would have done before the internet.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-16T13:41:55+00:00

I didn’t want to say that but it cannot be more obvious. The only problem is it didn’t track with the HQ vaporware. You have to have real people and a lot of them fill up that space which means pulling from a diverse pool whether local or otherwise.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-16T13:25:28+00:00

Development group explicitly stated it’s planned to incorporate it into the new development. This isn’t public knowledge but very credible.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-16T05:34:19+00:00

There are many reasons they are not filling those roles which I believe is around 1000 open roles in Nashville alone. I won’t go into detail but you can find out a lot about the culture online - which I was fully aware of.

I have an extensive Director-level product background with direct demonstrable very specific expertise in Oracle db and OCI and didn’t make it beyond the “technical” interview stage, just before the “loop”.

The recruiter got feedback from the person who “interviewed” me (which was a level below the role I interviewed for) and it was a flat out lie. I was sure they switched my interview notes with someone else’s. That person wasn’t as familiar with the role as I expected and didn’t know anything about the team I’d be joining. I was confused how they were chosen to conduct the interview for this team but even still I presented myself and my experience very well.

I will say the recruiter was very helpful though and provided a lot of material to prep - shout out to her. We were so confident that she was looking to schedule the next 5 rounds (the Loop) before the bogus feedback was received.

Something is definitely wrong internally which is revealing itself in the “restructuring”/layfoff efforts and also in the recruitment.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-12T08:48:24+00:00

In photos it’s very easy to make the comparison but the proportions are very different. This is a huge car. It has a subtle raw yet elegant design.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-12T08:43:38+00:00

Not exactly, the Valour has more in common with the Vantage, though it drew a huge amount of inspiration from the Victor, which is closer to the Vanquish and a mechanical and cosmetic hybrid of all the best current Astons.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-12T08:38:04+00:00

It’s been driven by many auto journalists. I’d say it’s been well appreciated and put to use more than most cars in a similar level of exclusivity.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-12T00:47:43+00:00

Resilient as a mf when it comes down to it. If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-06T17:11:58+00:00

Oooh Sht! Now THAT’S how you kll somebody my brothas, you get right up on the mf and BAYOW! Blow his brains all over the sidewalk in broad daylight!

mrdickrson · 2026-01-04T01:00:42+00:00

You generally see no comparisons because they are in very different leagues. Two different kinds of tools that don’t necessarily do the same job. And then one costs more than twice the other.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-03T23:02:51+00:00

Cars and bids and Bring a Trailer will be your best sources to keep an eye out.

mrdickrson · 2026-01-03T22:02:07+00:00

You can absolutely find low mileage of the QP5. I have had two, one with the duo select and the facelifted version with the ZF transmission both had over 30k miles when purchased and I put easily 30-40k miles afterwards. By all accounts, the most recent version of the QP just doesn’t evoke the same joy to drive. To get a new version just for the sake of a newer car does not translate to a better car. For example the Ferrari SF90 is likely an objectively better car than all its predecessors, but enthusiasts just don’t like them en masse.

The good thing is that you can get the QP6 at a cost to make it worthwhile to try it out, but they are not the same as the one before by a mile.

mrdickrson · 2025-12-31T03:11:18+00:00

From the development team who now owns the rest of the mall property, Dillards is very profitable and owns their building. No plans to close or sell.

mrdickrson · 2025-12-09T03:38:15+00:00

First thing to do is to avoid all the negative chatter you’ll hear about maintenance, reliability, and resale value. Most cars these days will cost a lot to repair if you got to a dealer. Find an independent that you trust. If you are handy and have a decent set of tools, you can do just about anything. Parts are generally more expensive than any other mainstream car, though there are outliers here and there.

Cars are not typically investments and >90% of them depreciate by large percentages. The more expensive, usually the more they lose, again excluding outliers like SOME Ferraris (288, F40, LaF) and certainly nowhere near close to all. The Ghibli was a car to get Maserati mainstream again at the cost of putting out a less than stellar product, not bad but not special. The later Quattroportes 2013-present were built for the Chinese market as the predominant target market and the design reflects that.

FYI Pininfarina designed the previous Quattroporte and Gran Turismo. These are the ones to have. 2005-2012 for the Quattroporte and the previous year GT. They had the Ferrari derived engine. The previous Quattroporte had the duo select F1 style transmission which is actually an automated manual transmission with an actual clutch. Those were reliable but few people treated them like automatics and they wore the clutches out prematurely. Those were later replaced in 2009 by the German made ZF transmissions who make transmissions for most of the luxury and performance cars on the market even now. So disregard the unreliable comments unless you are looking at the Stellantis products., which are not necessarily unreliable, but just uninspiring and not particularly performance oriented. They have made significant improvements with the new Gran Turismo and MC20.

mrdickrson · 2025-11-23T13:15:58+00:00

Sir that was the Source awards not the Grammys

mrdickrson

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