{"id":2267522,"date":"2024-06-14T03:29:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-14T07:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bob-kelley-1927-2024\/"},"modified":"2024-06-14T03:33:22","modified_gmt":"2024-06-14T07:33:22","slug":"bob-kelley-1927-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bob-kelley-1927-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Kelley, 1927-2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">6<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fbob-kelley-1927-2024%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2267522&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Bob Kelley, an influential figure who transformed the Kelley Blue Mountain from a regional trade-in value guide into a critical nationwide source, passed away at his home in Indian Wells, California on May 28, \u200bat the age \u2064of 96. Born into a\u2064 family of Ford dealers in \u20641927, Kelley innovated the Kelley Blue \u200bBook (KBB) which was originally created in 1926 to assess trade-in values at his family&#8217;s Ford \u200ddealership in Los Angeles. Under his leadership, KBB expanded its\u200b scope and became \u2064a reliable resource for used-car values, utilized by banks and dealers outside \u2062the immediate\u2064 Los Angeles area. After \u2064the closure of Kelley Ford in\u200b 1962,\u200b Bob Kelley continued to \u200dpublish KBB, enhancing its data analysis and maintaining its reputation for accuracy. In response\u2062 to emerging competitors in the 1980s, Kelley made KBB available \u200cto \u200cconsumers in bookstores, empowering buyers and\u200c inadvertently ensuring dealers \u2062continued to use the guide. In 1995, alongside\u200d his son Michael, Kelley pioneered one of \u200dthe earliest consumer-focused automotive websites, extending KBB&#8217;s accessibility and influence in \u200dthe digital age.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Bob Kelley, who reimagined his family\u2019s Kelley Blue Book first as a nationwide source of information and then again as a pillar of the early consumer-oriented World Wide Web, died at his home in Indian Wells, California, on May 28. He was 96 years old. <\/p>\n<p>Born to a Los Angeles Ford dealer family in 1927, Kelley graduated from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/high-school\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>high school<\/a> in 1945 and, after attending pilot training at the University of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/new-mexico\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>New Mexico<\/a>, returned to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/2440533\/car-dealers-press-biden-to-ease-up-on-unrealistic-electric-vehicle-push\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>work at the dealership<\/a> in used-car appraisal, which was a major part of the Kelley business model after several wartime years with no new<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-administration-delays-fuel-credit-program-for-electric-car-makers\/\" title=\"Biden delays electric car fuel credit program.\">-vehicle production<\/a>. He also assumed responsibility for the Kelley Blue Book. Begun in 1926 as a list of prices Kelley Ford was willing to pay for trade-in vehicles, the \u201cKBB\u201d had already passed into broader use around Los Angeles as a general indicator of used-car values. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/banks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Banks<\/a> and competing dealerships were happy to avail themselves of the information, which, in turn, reinforced the position of Kelley <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/business\/2982170\/ford-reports-loss-on-every-ev-sold-in-first-quarter\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Ford<\/a> as not just the largest Ford dealership in the area but also a legitimate authority on pricing. <\/p>\n<figure><figcaption>(Courtesy Bob Kelley\u2019s family)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Under Bob Kelley\u2019s stewardship, the KBB became significantly more detailed as Kelley learned which factors truly affected used-car value and which did not. Mileage and generalized condition rankings were the most important, of course, but even in the postwar era, certain equipment, such as an automatic transmission or air conditioning, could have a nontrivial effect on prices. To aid users of the book, the KBB also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/these-are-the-house-gops-multiple-investigations-into-bidens-classified-docs\/\" title=\"These Are the House GOP\u2019s Multiple Investigations Into Biden\u2019s Classified Docs\">contained basic information<\/a> on finding serial numbers and ensuring the presence of original equipment.<\/p>\n<p>When Kelley Ford closed in 1962, KBB continued under the ownership of a competing dealer who retained Bob Kelley in the publisher role. By then, competitors like the \u201cRed Book\u201d by National Market Reports were doing business on a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/house-gop-requests-probe-into-covid-19-benefits-fraud\/\" title=\"House GOP requests probe into COVID-19 benefits fraud\">nationwide scale<\/a>. Kelley responded by crunching more and more data. The closure of the dealership had little effect on confidence in the book. By the \u201960s, the majority of its users had likely never set foot in California. They did, however, have confidence in Robert Kelley, whose book developed and maintained a reputation for accuracy. <\/p>\n<p>By the 1980s, many of the dealerships that had relied on the KBB were using other publications, such as the National Automobile Dealers Association\u2019s \u201cOfficial Used Car Guide\u201d or the Black Book, founded in 1955 to focus on wholesale used-car value as measured at auctions. Kelley\u2019s response was to go to the consumer, who had long seen the KBB in the hands of dealership appraisers. You could buy the KBB at nearly any bookstore, and exasperated dealership personnel became accustomed to seeing it in the hands of their more informed customers. This had the salutary effect of forcing dealerships to keep buying the KBB, in large part because the aforementioned savvy shoppers had a tendency to bring in an older edition of the book, which usually had slightly higher values for the vehicles in question. <\/p>\n<p>In 1995, with the help of his son Michael, who had joined the company 14 years earlier, Bob took an even more dramatic step, putting the Blue Book on the World Wide Web. Once again, he was ahead of the curve, and as a result, he built an enterprise valuable enough for Cox Enterprises, owners of the competing AutoTrader, to pay more than half a billion dollars to acquire it in 2010.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title><strong>CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Kelley was retired by then, having walked away from KBB in 2001, but relatives and friends indicated that his interest in automotive trends and data remained sharp and insightful. He is survived by his wife Wanda, his sister Debi Sullivan, his sons Michael and Mitchell, daughters Cynthia Shilling, Nancy Bracken, and Christine Vogelheim, 12 grandchildren, and 10 great-grandchildren. His name remains synonymous with valuation for used cars, new cars, motorcycles, RVs, and even vintage cars that fall outside the purview of the standard-issue KBB. <\/p>\n<p>The power of Robert Kelley\u2019s book was such that sales managers at dealerships often acquired the defensive habit of slapping the KBB on the table and declaring, \u201cThis book never bought or sold a car,\u201d to their most stubborn customers. While that was strictly true from 1962 forward, the truth of the matter is that much of the used-car business followed Kelley\u2019s intuition and opinions in a manner reminiscent of the chicken and egg. Did the book reflect reality, or was the market actually directed by what was between its flexible blue covers? Today, most customers expect to consult the internet before beginning the vehicle purchase process. Whether they know it or not, they are following in Robert Kelley\u2019s deeply worn footsteps. <\/p>\n<p><em>Jack Baruth was born in Brooklyn, New York, and lives in Ohio. He is a pro-am <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/macho-fails-to-move\/\" title=\"\u2018Macho\u2019 Fails To Move\">race car driver<\/a> and a former columnist for <\/em>Road and Track <em>and <\/em>Hagerty <em>magazines who writes the <\/em>Avoidable Contact Forever <em>newsletter<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bob Kelley, the innovator who transformed Kelley Blue Book into a key national resource and an early consumer-focused web platform, passed away at his Indian Wells, California home on May 28. He was 96. Born in 1927 into a Los Angeles Ford dealer family, Kelley redefined automotive information dissemination<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3131,"featured_media":2267523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Obit-1.jpg.optimal.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2267522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Obit-1.jpg.optimal.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2267522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2267523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2267522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2267522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2267522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}