Driven
By Donald Liebenson
By Donald Liebenson
The year was 1953. A pre-teen Rick Mancuso was helping out around his father’s Chevrolet dealership in Skokie. Suddenly, he recalls, the sales staff excitedly ran past the parts department where Mancuso was sweeping and gathered outside in the parking lot. The new Corvettes had arrived. To see something that unique was an exciting and impactful moment. The die was cast; Mancuso would devote his life to selling (and even racing) sports cars.
Today, Mancuso is rounding the track towards his fourth decade as the owner of Lake Forest Sportscars. His stock in trade was cars bearing the brand names that make even non-car buffs swoon: Ferrari, Aston-Martin, Lotus, and Maserati. Going forward, he says, he will represent Ferrari exclusively.
Ferrari is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year. The Mancuso family is celebrating its 94th in the car business, and Mancuso shows no signs of running out of gas. “I have never enjoyed it more,” he said about his business. “I’ve never been happier or prouder to be a Ferrari dealer, and our company has never been stronger.”
It all started with his grandfather, a plumber living in Batavia, New York near the Canadian border during the Prohibition era. The way Mancuso heard it, his grandfather was tinkering with five cars outside his shop increasing their fuel and cargo-carrying capacity. Some representatives from General Motors were scouting for potential dealers, saw the cars outside Mancuso’s shop and thought he was in the used car business. When they asked if he wanted to be a Chevrolet dealer, his response, according to family legend, was, “Why the hell not?”
Mancuso’s father worked for him and then relocated to Illinois after serving in World War II. Beginning as a salesman at Rush Street Cadillac, he moved to Skokie in the early 1950s where he became a Chevrolet dealer until 1994. Rick worked for his father from 1972-79.
“I grew up in the business and liked it,” he says. “I remember how exciting the cars were at the time. It was a big deal when the new models arrived (in the fall). The dealers would cover the windows before unveiling them.”
But working with his father eventually “didn’t work out so well,” Mancuso reveals. “I didn’t care for the volume end of the business. We had the opportunity to be the first approved Porsche dealership in North America in the 1970s. My father completely rejected the idea because the cars were not made in America. That’s who he was; a World War II guy, a General Motors guy. No foreign cars in his life. It was his real estate and his franchise and working capital. I knew I needed to be with his program 100 percent or get out. It was hard (between us) for a long time.”
Mancuso and his wife moved to Lake Forest in the early 70s. He had been looking for something unique to rent, he said. A realtor offered him a choice between a lakefront A-frame in Glencoe and a log cabin in Lake Forest. “We ended up there for about three years and put down our roots here,” he said.
He founded Lake Forest Sportscars in 1981. The business moved from its original downtown Lake Forest location in 2005 to its present 67,000-square foot, four-and-a-half acre facility at 990 North Shore Drive in Lake Bluff.
What is the mystique sports cars hold on the imagination? “It’s different for every person,” Mancuso states. “I was drawn to the performance. I sold a lot of Corvettes at Chevrolet. They were more fun to sell. Clients didn’t have to buy the car, they wanted to. I enjoyed that more.”
The sports cars that Mancuso sells are aspirational. “I would routinely get calls from prizefighters before a big fight trying to psyche themselves up,” he says. “They were setting that goal. People called me from intensive care units.”
Mancuso estimates that over half of his clients are small-to-medium-sized Midwest business owners. The rest are comprised of doctors, lawyers, and non-professionals who come into a financial windfall, such as lotto winners or trust funders.
He has also scored his share of clients who are professional athletes, including a former Chicago Bulls icon who used to live in Highland Park. “He’s a great guy,” Mancuso says of Michael Jordan, who bought numerous Ferraris from him throughout the 90s. Wanting to “be like Mike” extended to his teammates. At one point, Mancuso states, “we had the entire Bulls starting line-up in Ferraris.”
Former Chicago Cubs superstar Sammy Sosa came to Mancuso for a Ferrari, but Sosa wanted to have the car shipped to Puerto Rico, and Mancuso does not sell cars for export. He referred Sosa to Mario Bommarito, himself a superstar as “Senior Ambassador” with Ferrari North America in New York. Their conversation, as Bommarito related to Mancuso, went something like this:
“I’m Sammy Sosa and I want to buy a Ferrari.”
“That’s great. What do you do?
“I’m Sammy Sosa.”
“Well, I’m Mario Bommarito.”
“You don’t know who I am?”
“If you were a professional soccer player, I would know who you are.”
“They laugh about it now,” Mancuso says.
But Mancuso didn’t just sell sports cars. He raced them as well. He became intrigued with the notion of racing during family visits to Road American in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. “I would think to myself, ‘I could be better than that driver,’” Mancuso says with a laugh. “I was completely wrong, of course.”
With the exception of one year, Mancuso has been a member of the Sports Car Club of America since 1971. He endured the grueling 24 Hours of Daytona race three times and received the SCCA’s Governor’s Cup award in 2002. On display in an office area are several of his racing helmets as well as models of cars he has raced or helped to design. He describes racing a Ferrari as “a wonderful therapy session that’s mind-cleansing” and akin to “an evening of great food and a great glass of wine.”
Mancuso and Lake Forest Sportscars have been through three recessions and a couple of wars. “We didn’t break even for the first five years,” he notes.
The economy may have affected the margins, but not the volume, he reflects. “Ferrari has a Midas touch. The product quality and design are better. That name is one of the world’s most recognizable brands and they are very protective of that.”
As is Mancuso. “We know our market is one tenth of one percent, but inside that little market, we’re the guys. We have to keep working at it to stay on top.”
That means assembling a “major league-caliber” service staff, he states. “There is no learning on the job here. You have to get your experience somewhere else. We have looked for people who love Ferraris and want to be here forever.”
He has likewise assembled a winning administrative team comprised of his two sons, daughter, and son-in-law. Unlike his own working relationship with his father, “it works so well because we all do completely different things in the dealership,” he explains. Adam, his eldest, is in charge of operations and finances, his daughter Cassie is in charge of events, advertising, and digital initiatives, his son-in-law, Dan, is the general manager, and his youngest son, Nick, is the general sales manager.”
That they have forged a winning team Mancuso credits in part to his work with former Navy SEALS. For the last five years, he has helped these warriors transition from active to inactive duty and helped to network socially and professionally in the community. (The company has also raised funds for the Combat Wounded Coalition).
“We treasure the relationship,” he says. “I’ve observed their code and I’ve learned a lot (about what it means to be a team) from these guys.”
After almost 40 years with his company, Mancuso does not reflect on roads not traveled. His mother, Clarissa Pope, was a prolific actress on stage and on television (she toured with the USO, where she met Mancuso’s father). Even though his father had business cards made for him at the age of 8, Mancuso never got the acting bug. “Some people say I’m on stage everyday,” he said with a laugh. “It’s the best of both worlds.”
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