It’s been a rough week at Frank Ancona Honda of Olathe, Kansas.
The family-owned dealership, in operation just southwest of Kansas City since 1961, has successfully weathered all of the storms that periodically pummel dealers of all stripes.
Then, last weekend, a body discovered on the banks of Missouri’s Big River — about a five-hour drive to the east — gave the dealership the kind of attention that no business wants. The corpse, which had a bullet hole in its head, also had a name: Frank Ancona.
No, the founder of Frank Ancona Honda is still alive and well at 85. But much to his dismay, the Frank Ancona discovered by the Big River was none other than the 51-year-old imperial wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
There have been phone calls to the dealership. Many of them, in fact.
When Automotive News first broke the story, the dealership had already posted a disclaimer on its website. “Frank Ancona Honda is not in any relation to the KKK leader that was recently found dead,” read any car shopper browsing for deals on a Odyssey or Accord.
A good thing to know. Unfortunately, not everyone does the groundwork to avoid leaping to conclusions.
Ancona told AN not long after news of the killing spread that his dealership received several calls from people “ranting and raving,” having mistaken him for the KKK leader.
Wharton said the news media has done a good job dispelling any connection between the dealer and the KKK leader, but social media is another story. Speculation has run rampant online, and that has led to more phone calls. Most have come from those looking to find out the identity of the Honda-loving Frank Ancona, though one offered sympathies for the dealer’s plight.
Others, placed by people who think themselves mighty clever, have proved more of an annoyance.
“We got a phone call from a customer yesterday who pretended to be a member of the KKK in Mississippi,” Wharton said. “He said he wanted to offer his condolences at the death of our leader. Our receptionist said, ‘After I explained that our “leader” is alive and well and not a KKK member, he fessed up and said, “I was just kidding.”‘”
“February is usually one of the worst months in the automobile business as it is,” he explained. “It just never does do very well in comparison to the other months. So could it have some impact? Yes. But can I pinpoint that it’s negatively affected business? No, not really.”
I hate it when sweet jobs open up in regions where I’d never want to live.
I know the feeling, for a brief period I considered interviewing as heir apparent to King Jong-Il. But they were like, you have to live in Pyongyang and perm your hair and I was like thanks but no thanks. Probably for the best, it seems other serious contenders get assassinated by the guy they hired.
Olathe, Kansas is a Kansas City suburb. KC is a terrific town. I’d live there. Good BBQ.
Since Tim began posting photos of Nova Scotia I’ve had but a single, shining Purpose.
to freeze?
Vairrrmin heet th’ colld, ye see.
What to do? Looks like the local media has that end covered, unless somebody calls that “alternative” facts. Modify your website’s page to state the no relation bit, maybe post on social media, and move on. This will pass quickly and who knows? Maybe you might sell a few cars(used anyway) to some dumba$$$ rednecks.
Sales: “Hello! This is Frank Ancona Honda, how may I assist you today?”
Customer: “Yes, do you have a new Civic Hatchback Sport in white?”
Sales: “Well of course we do…in fact, all of our cars in stock are white, even our pre-owned models…ever heard of ‘white power’?”
Customer: (long silence)
@runs_on_h8raide – ‘white power’
Those are shocks used on KTM motorcycles. I kid you not. The company changed the name to “WP” to try to distance themselves from the obvious hateraid.
@Lou_BC
Now that is what I call a “shocking” revelation!!
You forgot to include sunroof, for the pointy hat.
I hear they even have a Tuner special that was modified with a KKK turbo.
Don’t spool me, bro!!!
I’m impressed.
No lag.
Reminds me of 2015, when I wondered how many parents had recently given their newborns a particular combination of two popular names: “Ashley” and “Madison.”
And then there’s the once-popular appetite suppressant candy, which saw its sales tank about 35 years ago, because few people wanted to “Lose weight with Ayds!”
Similarly, in 1937 Studebaker changed the name of its lowest-priced model – the Dictator – to Commander, once fascist regimes began to take firm hold in Europe.
Sometime in the 60’s or 70’s Chevrolet sold a version of the Nova in South America. It did not sell well because No Va mean no go in Spanish. You figure their marketing people could have figured this out. The cases you mention are simply happenstance. Who could have predicted the news events when those products were named.
MRF 95 T-Bird: That Nova myth just won’t go away. It’s not true. Just a myth.
http://spanish.about.com/cs/culture/a/chevy_nova.htm
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
Thanks for the correction. I heard it in the early 80’s from a marketing professor in college. The days before instant fact checking.
Thanks, mcs…you beat me to it.
The other oft-repeated “Nova tale” is that GM purposely named the other divisions’ variants Omega, Ventura and Apollo, so that the first letters of the model names formed the acronym “NOVA.” To my knowledge, it’s never been supported as a fact by anyone at GM at the time, and is most likely pure coincidence.
Regarding the N.O.V.A. acronym, considering Omega, Ventura, and Apollo weren’t legacy names, and didn’t particularly line up with any of the naming schemes to their particular brands, you’d think they’d try and follow the Sloan ladder a little further, and swap Pontiac and Oldsmobile in the order (if it was deliberate).
I’m not sure I’d agree with your statement that Omega, Ventura and Apollo didn’t line up with the naming schemes applied to other models of each make. There was at least one model in each division that seemed to line up:
Oldsmobile was using another Greek letter as a model name (Delta).
Pontiac was using another California place name (Catalina).
Buick was using another Greek god’s name (Electra).
Perhaps not as consistent as things were further back in time – when Plymouth used hotel names and Pontiac used train names – but there was some commonality with other model names.
I once made a smore, the smore was a bit unusual because it contained peanut butter rather than chocolate, it was a bit mediocre in the end.
Days after that I removed a few things from my trunk… so there! Car related-,ness!
Oh and btw I’ve been charged in the death of a smore, but that’s unimportant.
In operation since 61, they must have started with Honda motorcycles.
Dreyer here in Indiana got a Honda store in 59, but never got into the car side which is where the real fortunes were made.
Goes to show how stupid some people are. This is no different than that poor plumber dude who’s truck ended up as a gun platform for ISIS.
Also a few companies with “ISIS” in their name… eg. ISIS constructions.
They then got abuse from dumb people.
Apparently they thought ISIS was in the construction business… since 1961!
Ah, the couple that Klukks together stays together…or not…here’s the story on Ancona:
http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/slain-missouri-kkk-leader-s-wife-stepson-charged/article_16137e81-ee9c-5b91-92c1-5685d93f1459.html
Well, at least my wife wasn’t murderous, though she did hit me with a cordless phone after I informed her I was dumping her.
Change it to Hitler Honda and teach people a lesson that “Things could always be worse”
Circleville, Ohio has Martha Hitler Park, Hitler Road, and a Hitler Cemetery.
As you would likely expect, this particular Hitler family’s presence in the community predated the Third Reich. In fact, the family was in the United States prior to the Revolutionary War.
Yeah, Hitler did nothing wrong (I kid).
The name Adolf took a beating though and the Indians slash East Asians cant ever use a swastika ever again in Western company…
My friend was given his middle name of Adolph post-WWII, by his German parents. shrug.
Well, I know what *I’d* do come Halloween if *I* owned the dealership!
This?
funds.gfmcdn.com/2829422_1418668714.8014.jpg
Put a white hood on the grille ornament guy, and yes.
The name Ancona sounds very Italian. I always though the Klanners and similar groups were not to found of them because of their Southern Italian heritage.
Anyone with some historical knowledge ought to know about the NewOrleans 11 and other incidents.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-new-orleans-eleven-the-untold-history-of-the-lynching-of-italians-in-america/5372379
Best Accords to Frank Ancona Honda.
I understand that today’s Klan has become more inclusive and no longer rants about Catholics trying to take over the U.S. government. Similarly, the actual neo-Nazis seem to be embracing Europeans the original Nazis considered to be non-Aryan. The funny things is that their pan-European “white nationalism” flies in the face of ethnic and cultural diversity on the continent.
“Inclusive” Klan…nice one, Ronnie…
“more inclusive”
Yes.
They’ve expanded to hating Hispanics and anyone resembling a Muslim.
So progressive.
“So progressive.”
One could describe many of the Klan’s positions as progressive or leftist. They were not free market, limited government, constitutional originalists. They believed very much in the state telling businesses and private actors what to do. Jim Crow certainly violated the property and association rights of businesses that wanted to do commerce with blacks. The KKK was politically aligned with the Democratic party (see Robert Byrd), some say it was the militant wing thereof.
Before the Soviets figured out their own whataboutism where accusing America of racism obsolved communism of all its own particular sins, the left was not exactly Simon-pure when it came to race.
Icons of the progressive movement like Margaret Sanger and Woodrow Wilson were overt racists. Eugenics was pretty popular among progressives. Sanger wanted to restrict blacks from breeding and Wilson racially segregated the U.S. armed forces and civil service.
“**A hundred years ago,** icons of the progressive movement like Margaret Sanger and Woodrow Wilson were overt racists…because racism was perfectly acceptable back then”
There, fixed it for you, Ronnie.
Thank me anytime!
(By the way, if we’re talking about long-dead racists, Republican icon Abe Lincoln wanted to solve the problem of racial inequality by sending all the black folks back to Africa. Yes, the Democratic party was largely made up of racists…until liberals spearheaded the civil rights movement, and as a result the racists all rage quit by 1968. Meanwhile, on the GOP side, just a few years back, we had a Republican senate majority leader, Trent Lott, who said that we’d have been a lot better off had Strom “Segregation Forever” Thurmond had won the presidency. Lott’s not dead. Wanna tag progressives as racist? Fine. I’m sure there are plenty of them. But this liberal isn’t one of them. And while you’re busy talking about racists, take responsibility for the ones on your side too.)
@Mike, Trent Lott was forced to resign over that. How did the Left handle Robert Byrd. And don’t give me that ancient history crap. Anyone who was in the Atlanta Radio market back in the 90’s heard him on then local afternoon drive guy San Hannity’s show dropping N bombs.
We can race bait all day, but both parties have a pretty pathetic history with regard to race. Were I a minority I would have nothing to do with either side. I don’t want much to do with either of them as a white male.
There I can needlessly inject politics into a discussion too. If we are going to do this then I’m going all in baby
I agree with you, Al, Byrd was a piece of garbage that the people of West Virginia should have tossed out of office decades before he died. Unfortunately the rest of us couldn’t tell West Virginians how to vote.
Just some thoughts on this Mike (no reply button on your comment below) “Yes, the Democratic party was largely made up of racists…until liberals spearheaded the civil rights movement, and as a result the racists all rage quit by 1968. Meanwhile, on the GOP side, just a few years back, we had a Republican senate majority leader, Trent Lott, who said that we’d have been a lot better off had Strom “Segregation Forever” Thurmond had won the presidency. Lott’s not dead. Wanna tag progressives as racist? Fine. I’m sure there are plenty of them. But this liberal isn’t one of them. And while you’re busy talking about racists, take responsibility for the ones on your side too.)
A. The Civil Rights Act was “spearheaded” for a long time by the GOP before LBJ (a racist) realized it had political value. A greater percentage of Repubs voted for the Act than did Dems, look it up).
B. When Strom was a segregationist he had a (D) behind his name. He left segregation and the party that supported it. Hilarious how the media still drags up this about Strom, though he changed and ignores the legacy of Robert Byrd’s far greater racist past that he never repudiated.
Cheerio.
I don’t look at the Civil Rights Act support being Republican/Democratic – “left/right centrists and liberals” is more accurate, I think. Support for the idea of civil rights was very strong among centrists and approached 100% among Democratic liberals. This was the coalition that got the civil rights acts done. It’s a damn shame that this sort of consensus can’t be achieved today.
At the time, the GOP wasn’t the party we know today – it was far more centrist. Socially, most Republicans were quite liberal by today’s standards. Unfortunately, the civil rights movement changed all that. Most of the old-guard segregationists either a) went away, or b) became Republicans, like Thurmond did. And Nixon capitalized on that with the “southern strategy.” The GOP hasn’t been the same since, and I think that’s a shame – a party that espouses a small-government, low-tax, and de minimus “government has no business telling people what to do in bed or with their reproductive organs” ideology would gain a lot of traction among many centrists and even some liberals.
And 100% correct on Byrd. He was a turd. Unfortunately, the rest of the country doesn’t get to tell a state to flush its’ turds before they get sent to Washington.
It is Italian. Generally Jewish Italian. Wonder if that sheethead knew he probably had Jewish ancestry.
“Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan”
As opposed to the Reformed American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan?
You mean there are avant garde and retrograde factions of the Klan?
Any remnants of the Klan that remain after the FBI took them on seriously in the 1960s and 1970s are a joke. There was a time when the KKK was a terrorist organization, and later a political force, but what remains is a rump. The self-styled Antifas are a greater threat to American civil society today and there are probably more of them than the 50,000 or so losers who join various factions of the Klan.
Robert Byrd Honda? His name is on everything else in West Virginia…
“Welcome to Robert Byrd Honda!!! When you buy a Honda here, we load every trunk with pork. Oh, you’re a Muslim or a vegetarian? Well that’s too damn bad! At Robert Byrd Honda…we’re never civically challenged!”
This dealer is in Kansas.
>This dealer is in Kansas.
All he needs to do is click his heels three times and repeat the words “there’s no place like home.”
So your girlfriend drives a Honda, and plays workout tapes by Fonda, but Fonda ain’t got a motor in the back of her Honda.
Frank Ancona don’t want none unless you got buns hun.
You win.
Seems as good a place as any to say my cousin drove a new Accord on my recommendation, and bought a new sedan/AT/I-4 Sport. Loves it.
Too bad they didnt have a BOGO sale, I’d get me a cheap LX coupe. Heheheh
But what did dead Frank Ancona drive? Hopefully not a Honda purchased from his non-namesake dealer so far away. That would be an inconvenient truth.
I can’t find the video anywhere (probably because it wasn’t a very good skit) but pont 9/11 Saturday Night Live did a piece about Al Qaeda Chrysler Plymouth with IIRC Horatio Sanz as Al Qaeda.
We’re talking about Kansas. How bad can a mistaken association with the Klan really be for business?
Yeah, all those rubes in flyover country are just a bunch of racist hicks, right?
I don’t know how active the Klan was in Kansas but during the Civil War Kansas seems to have been equally divided between Confederate sympathizing bushwhackers and Union supporting jayhawkers.
I live in the crown jewel of flyover country. We can make whatever hateful remarks we want against our own people.
“Yeah, all those rubes in flyover country are just a bunch of racist hicks, right?
yep. Indiana for instance.
History can do that to you.
My plumber, an otherwise normal person, has the same name as a convicted child molester in the area. He couldn’t answer his phone for a while, and since he is self employed, spent a lot of time saying, no, I’m not THAT one…
Better, when I lived in Boston, I went to visit a friend in one of the many older walkup buildings. The building dated from the 10-20’s and the mosaic inside was quite nice-usually there was some pattern…but here…all swastikas ! Somehow it had survived WW2 intact.
I used to work at a car dealership not far from Sandy Hook Elementary School, with a guy whose name was all of one letter off of the Sandy Hook shooter’s name. And he was at lunch when the first released the name. Everyone freaked for a moment before he came back to work.
“History can do that to you.
My plumber, an otherwise normal person, has the same name as a convicted child molester in the area. He couldn’t answer his phone for a while, and since he is self employed, spent a lot of time saying, no, I’m not THAT one…
Better, when I lived in Boston, I went to visit a friend in one of the many older walkup buildings. The building dated from the 10-20’s and the mosaic inside was quite nice-usually there was some pattern…but here…all swastikas ! Somehow it had survived WW2 intact.”
the old indian swastika has the legs backwards and is at 0 degree angle instead of 45 degrees. looks a lot different
And here I was wondering why all of the white vehicles are parked at the front of the dealership while the darker ones are hidden in the back.
“Our receptionist said, ‘After I explained that our “leader” is alive and well and not a KKK member, he fessed up and said, “I was just kidding.”‘”
This is my two-year-old’s standard go-to technique when caught in an embarrassing lie or misunderstanding. I only wish the racist trolls would mature as fast as he does.
“I only wish the racist trolls would mature as fast as he does.”
I’m gettin’ there! I’m now only racist on days when my feet hurt.