Cal Worthington Net Worth

What Was Cal Worthington's Net Worth?

Cal Worthington was an American car dealer who had a net worth of $100 million at the time of his death in 2013. Cal Worthington grew up very poor, and after dropping out of school to work in his early teens, he went on to enlist in the Army Air Corps. His military service is widely documented, as he trained some of the first astronauts. Worthington began selling used cars after returning to Texas, and he subsequently moved to California, where he opened his first Hudson Motor Car dealership. It became one of the first businesses to advertise on television, and Cal bought huge blocks of advertising during nighttime movie airings.

At his peak, his dealerships sold $300 million worth of cars per year, and he spent $15 million per year on advertisements. His ads spread across the West Coast, and he became one of the most well-known used car dealers in the U.S. Worthington's ads, which were parody style, led to his appearing in movies, and he became somewhat of a pop culture icon. In addition to his dealerships, Cal owned a 24,000-acre ranch in Orland, California. Worthington passed away on September 8, 2013, at the age of 92.

Early Life

Cal Worthington was born Calvin Coolidge Worthington on November 27, 1920, in Bly, Oklahoma, which is now defunct. His parents named him after Calvin Coolidge, who had been elected Vice President three weeks before Worthington was born. Cal had eight siblings, and he dropped out of school when he was 13 and took a job as a water boy on a road crew, which paid 15 cents per hour. At the age of 15, he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps at the beginning of World War II, and he served as an aerobatics champion at Texas' Goodfellow Field. As a Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress pilot, Worthington flew nearly 30 missions over Germany. He received five Air Medals as well as a Distinguished Flying Cross. He achieved the rank of captain by the time he was discharged. Some of the pilots Cal trained later became astronauts.

(Photo by Jeff Gritchen/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images)

Career

After his time in the military, Worthington wanted to be a commercial pilot but couldn't because he didn't have a college degree. He sold his car and put the $500 he made toward the purchase of a gas station in Corpus Christi, Texas. The gas station wasn't successful, and he sold it for the amount he paid for it. Cal then started selling used cars in front of the Corpus Christi post office, and later moved to a dirt lot. After making $500 by selling just three cars in a week, he decided that selling cars would be his career. In the late 1940s, Worthington moved to Huntington Park, California, and opened a Hudson dealership. An early adopter of TV advertising, he bought airtime during a weekly country music show that aired live on KTLA in Los Angeles. The show later became known as "Cal's Corral." Full-program sponsorships eventually became unfeasible, so Worthington decided to switch to ads that were 30 or 60 seconds instead. He became a Ford dealer, and by the '70s, his ads were seen during late-night movies on four of the seven TV stations in L.A.

One of his rivals was Chick Lambert of Brand Motors Ford City, who starred in TV ads with a German Shepherd named Storm. Lambert later started working for Ralph Williams Ford, and he began his ads by saying, "Some people call this a commercial; I call it an invitation." Cal responded to these ads by launching his "dog Spot" commercials. The ads aired from the '60s through '90s, and they were loosely inspired by the "oddball" style of Earl "Madman" Muntz. The commercials began with the line, "Here's Cal Worthington and his dog Spot!" However, "Spot" was never actually a dog and was instead an exotic animal, such as a gorilla, elephant, hippopotamus, or tiger. The commercials featured a jingle that was set to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It." Cal reportedly wrote the lyrics, and he recorded the jingle with the help of rockabilly musician Sammy Masters. The Television Bureau of Advertising said that Worthington was "probably the best-known car dealer pitchman in television history."

The Worthington Dealership Group expanded across the West and the Southwest, and at its peak, it operated close to 30 dealerships in states such as Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and Washington. By the early 2000s, Cal had become one of the first people to adopt the concept of the "auto mall" over the traditional standalone dealership. Around this time, he also owned an office tower and three shopping centers, which made reported annual gross revenues of $600 million. Worthington played himself in several films and television shows, including 1985's "Into the Night" and 1991's "Killer Tomatoes Strike Back!," and characters based on him were featured in the films "Cannonball Run II" (1984) and "Made in America" (1993).

Personal Life and Death

Cal married and divorced four times, and he welcomed his youngest child when he was in his early eighties. He never owned a personal car and drove used cars from his dealerships instead. In a 2007 interview, he revealed that he didn't actually enjoy selling cars but "just kind of got trapped in it after the war. I didn't have the skills to do anything else. I just wanted to fly." In 2010, he appeared in a political ad for Larry Miles, who was running for the California State Assembly. The ad featured Worthington and "Spot" alongside Miles. Cal maintained his medical certification and his pilot certificate until two years before he died, and he was type-rated on the Learjet.

On September 8, 2013, Worthington passed away at his California ranch at the age of 92. His grandson Nick subsequently became the general manager of Cal's automobile business. The family sold its last dealership in 2023 to focus on agriculture and commercial real estate.

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