Kid Rock as a Car Dealer?

Kid Rock as a Car Dealer?

By Michelle Krebs

Kid Rock, pictured rehearsing for his performance at the GM Style gala on Saturday night, almost had a different career than music.

His father wanted him to be a car dealer.

In the early days of his career, Kid Rock’s father, Bill Ritchie (Kid Rock’s real name is Bob Ritchie), desperately wanted his son to settle down into a real career in the family car business.

When the National Automobile Dealers Association hosted an annual fall luncheon for the Automotive Press Association in Detroit, I often sat with Bill, who was Michigan’s representative to the NADA. He’d give me an update on his rock ‘n roller son, then a virtual unknown even to many Detroiters. Bill would lament that he just wished his son would quit this nonsense and do something more secure, like work at his dealership.

Bill expressed relief one year, reporting to me that his daughter, who had worked in the dealership and been a promising dealer to be, had taken over as manager for her brother. It was when she took over, Bill told me, Kid Rock started making serious money and his career soared.

At the time, I still had not heard of him but told my then middle-school daughter and her friends that I knew Kid Rock’s father. I became a celebrity by association.

Bill has since sold his dealership, and I doubt he laments his son’s career choice anymore.

It's hard to imagine Kid Rock as a car dealer.

Michelle Krebs:  is Editor-in-Chief of AutoObserver.com. Follow @AutoObserver on Twitter.