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Goss On Ross, Tradin’ Hoss
By Kirk Dooley |

I’d heard stories about him, about this used car dealer who had proclaimed himself “The Mayor of Ross Avenue.” They said he drove around with hogs and goats and chickens in his car to drum up business. But nothing they might have told me could have adequately prepared my concept of U.S. capitalism for the beating it would take from Gene Goss.

Looking for a used car lot on Ross Avenue is like looking for a place to eat on Lemmon. But from eight blocks away the sign was screaming at me – “GOSS ON ROSS, Tradin’ Hoss.” I pulled in, parked in front of the sign that said “Equal Opportunity Payments,” and emerged from my car into a wonderland of more signs, a billboard library.



Go To Work Cars – $49 Down Start To Work Cars – $35 Down

Go To Work Slow Cars – $19 Down

50% Off If You Deal Blindfolded

If You Decide To Buy One, Give Us 45 Minutes To Get It Cranked Up

No Fishing

As I made my way towards the shack of an office, I made a count on the front lot: there were eight beat-up cars, a pick-up, and a blue van. And one of the cars was mine. Over by a get-to-work-late car I spotted two guys talking. One of them looked startlingly like a well-known Texas football coach. Another man, a big man, was walking towards them with a fat sheaf of papers and documents in his hand. “Here’s those old land records, Dar-rell,” he said. “These things are so old there’s probably still some Indians in there.” The Coach cracked up. The big fellow was obviously the Tradin’ Hoss.

Darrell Royal must feel right at home in Gene Goss’ office – it’s orange everything – orange chairs, orange couches, orange posters. “This is my Longhorn room,” he explained unnecessarily. “It’s for my boys when they come in town.” Three of his sons are in Austin now and Gene Goss has gone fanatical over UT football. It took a true-to-life Aggie joke to turn the conversation from football to used cars.



“One time these two Aggies come in here,” Goss began, “and they been drinkin’ all day long, see, and they sold me their car for $200. Well, they woke up the next mornin’ and their Aggie mother wanted to know where their car was. Well, hell, they didn’t know and they already spent the money. But their Aggie mother found out and she come here raisin’ hell. What could I do? I had already sold the car. So I gave back the $200. Yeah, I lost $200 – but it sure was fun.” There was the first inkling of the Gene Goss sales approach.

I asked him his secret for selling a used car. He explained that the key is when to sell a car to someone. I needed an example. “One time this old boy in Denton had a friend who wanted to buy a car from me. I told him to bring his buddy on in but to let him off at LBJ and let him walk the rest of the way. I wouldn’t have any trouble sel-lin’ that boy a car, see. When people come in, I look at the corns on their feet to see how much to charge ’em. If you think my cars are bad, ask a hitchhiker.”

There were plenty of other stories. There was the Indian from an Oklahoma reservation who refused to make his payments to Goss by mail (no doubt leery of the ways of the white man). Every month he’d pack up his family and drive to Dallas to make his car payment and would only hand over the money to Goss himself (“Where’s the Wild Man?” he would ask). “I was out of town once,” says the Tradin’ Hoss, “and that Indian and his whole family waited in their car for two days and two nights ’til I got back.”

Then there was the elderly black man who made his $49 down payment on a $300 car. When time for the first monthly payment came around, a letter arrived from the old man saying he desperately needed the car but times weren’t good for him, and the Lord had mercy on those who didn’t take cars away from the innocent. He promised a payment the next month. But each month thereafter a similar message arrived, sometimes written on a page torn out of the Bible. “He sure was a funny old man,” Goss laughs. “Said I looked like his Colonel …. Never did pay me.”

The Tradin’ Hoss got called out on the lot to do a little business, but he left me in the Longhorn room to thumb through his scrapbook, a huge thing stuffed with papers, pictures, and clippings. One article informed me that Gene began selling cars on the corner of Ross and Akard in 1946. He had three cars for sale and one had painted on its windshield “A steal – Take it away.” Someone did. After he collected the insurance he was back in business. (Goss claims to have been broke more times than anyone else in used car history. But then that’s nothing for The Mayor of Ross Avenue. Other mayors have been known to go broke.)

Throughout the Fifties Goss was riding high. At one point he had two large lots on Ross and one in Grand Prairie – “Goss Off Ross, The Same Old Hoss.” There was a time when he was the undisputed leader in Dallas used car sales, according to one newspaper clipping. “Yeah, I had energy then,” Goss recalls. “I had fun – maybe too much fun. I woke up one day lacking 15¢ having a nickel and I decided to quit drinking.”

The scrapbook was full of old classified ads. “1¢ Sale. Buy this ’41 Chevy for $595 and get a ’31 Chevy for 1¢. Runs good. Makes good fishin’ car. Goss on Ross.” Instead of such standard tag lines as “smooth quiet ride,” the ads were embellished with such Gossisms as “Have you ever heard a mouse run on cotton?” One old ad offered a clue about the tradin’ instincts of the Hoss: “Would like to trade one of my good clean cars for cement work, carpenter work, musical instruments, tools, guns, horses, mules, or anything worth a few bucks. Goss on Ross.”

His trader’s image is no put-on. Over the years he has traded his cars for such items as false teeth, a wooden leg, a casket, an alligator, and a small carnival. Perhaps his most celebrated trade was several years ago when he traded for a 1919 Chevy which had been boarded up in the garage of Mrs. Mattie Yaw for an untold number of years. It was a Touring Model 4-90 (“That stands for four days on the road and 90 in the garage,” explained Goss). There were no title papers, so they drew up their own “official soun-din’ ” agreement. In Goss’ own handwriting, it reads:

“30-20-59. At Night. Trade Deal on Old Car. The deal goes like this – Mattie Yaw, now of age, trades me her 1919 Chevy 4-door Tourin’ model 490, plus these things throwed in: one small wood stove, two old timey trunks, her husband’s cross cut saw, one shoe last and stand and one old timey lantern, for my stuff listed below: One small pocket radio, one diamond lookin’ ring, one rollaway bed, plus $325 paid by check. Deal made and agreed on, signed Gene Goss, Mrs. Mattie Yaw.”

The Tradin’ Hoss returned to his office. “You know, I really love my cars.” It was a sincere, almost emotional voice. “I get here in the mornings and go out back by myself and talk to my cars. Yeah, I talk to ’em like you talk to flowers. I thank ’em for everything they done for me and I see their sad expressions. Most people think these old cars are done in. These old cars don’t think so. They tell me, ’Don’t send us to death row. We still got somethin’ in us.’ I believe my cars so I fix ’em up and let ’em live some more.”

He talked on wistfully. “I’ve got a car back there that does tricks for me. Yeah. One time I was on the highway and she started dancin’. I think that’s the only dancin’ car I’ve ever seen . . . .” He got up slowly. “C’mon, let’s go out back.”

He led the way out to the back lot, an automotive mortuary. It was eerie back here; thirty lifeless automobiles and … a dead body? On the hood of one old junker was an open casket with a body hanging out of it. The body was a mannequin; on the side of the casket were the handwritten words, “One way ride, but it’s SAFE!”

Goss was reminded of another string of stories. He had repossessed a car one night. The police dropped by the next day and asked him to open the trunk. What the police already knew was that there was a dead man inside. Goss opened the trunk. “Well, well, Goss,” said the police to the horrified Hoss, “did you two have a little argument?” Goss stood stricken until realizing that the joke, for once, was on him. Shortly after that incident, Goss opened the trunk of a car he had just bought and a man jumped out. “He nearly killed me,” says Goss. “He was a MAD sumbitch. Seems what happened was he was all boozed up and ridin’ a motorcycle down near Kaufman. Well, his friends saw he was liable to kill himself so they put him in the trunk for his own safety. I guess they forgot he was in there.” A few days later, Goss heard scratching in the trunk of another car. He called the police, afraid of another madman or another dead man. The police cautiously opened the trunk. Inside were a duck and four ducklings. “They were the cutest little things you ever saw. That momma duck would walk around and them babies followed around in single file like they do. . .”

We moved on through the graveyard. Another sign. “Don’t come back here. EAT’N DOG.” A huge German Shepherd appeared, as if on cue. “This is Rip,” said Goss. “He’s a pretty smart old dog. See that up there?” He was pointing into a tree where some twenty feet up was perched a tree-house … no, doghouse. Goss pointed to a piece of wood and commanded, “Rip, get that wood and put it up in your house,” The dog grabbed the wood, trotted up a ladder behind the tree, deposited the wood, and was back down again as if nothing had happened. A tree climbing dog.

We walked to the front lot and as we neared my car I noticed a man carefully looking it over. “I’ll give you $200 for this one,” he said as we approached. “Hell,” Goss interceded, “it’s worth five times that much. This is a get to work early car – a car so good you’ll leave on time and get there early.”

Driving out, I took a last look at Gene Goss’ loving handiwork, the painted messages on the windshields of the cars.



This one was driven 5,000 careful miles by a Highland Park old maid.



On the blue van was painted, Smoke that pot, $695.



On another, Bad motor – Not for sale.”



Be a Pusher! $49 Down.



Learn to be a Mechanic – $49 Down.



This one was owned by a Postman.He walked a lot.

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