companyThe Profit · Season 1, Episode 1 · Aired July 30, 2013
1 800 Car Cash
New York City, New York
Open. The rescue stuck and it continues to operate. It trades today as 1-800 Car Cash NJ.
What happened after
Company traces to 1977; operates today as 1-800 Car Cash NJ with three New Jersey locations (East Brunswick etc). Site does not mention Marcus Lemonis/The Profit directly but business type, founding year, and NJ footprint match the show company.
What happened on the show
Jon and Andrew inherited a used car lot after their father died, and the two brothers could barely keep it running. Margins on each vehicle ran thin, wholesalers skimmed the revenue that should have stayed theirs, and Andrew felt boxed in by his older brother's grip on every decision. Marcus put $200,000 on the table for a one third stake, sweetening it with the licensing rights to turn the shop into a national brand. His fixes were procedural before they were cosmetic. He made Jon sit down and appraise each car face to face with the seller, and he cut the middlemen out of the buying so the profit stayed in house. To defuse the family friction, he handed Andrew a project of his own, a marketing campaign his brother was not allowed to touch. Then he spent north of $300,000 rebuilding the lot into something with a single, consistent look. Jon learned to hold firmer prices and sell directly to dealers, Andrew's advertising work won his brother over, and the rift that had been strangling the place finally eased. In the months that followed the business expanded into several states and started signing up licensees.
After the cameras left
This was one of the show's clear wins, and it has aged into a durable one. The company's roots reach back to 1977, and it still trades today as 1-800 Car Cash NJ, running three New Jersey storefronts out of towns such as East Brunswick. The current operation does not trumpet the Marcus Lemonis connection on its homepage, but the business type, the founding year, and the New Jersey footprint all line up with the company that took his investment. A handful of older individual locations show up tagged as closed on Yelp, which reads as ordinary churn rather than collapse, since the parent still advertises current locations and nearly half a century in the trade. Confirmed operating as of our 2026 verification pass.
Sources
Confidence: medium. Last checked 2026-07-19.