I worked with Cruz Santamaria at Gunther Mazda on the - fdcgue
I worked with Cruz Santamaria at Gunther Mazda on the purchase of a 2026 Mazda Miata Grand Touring with a manual transmission, obviously, because what kind of idiot buys a Miata in automatic?
From my first conversation with Cruz, he was sincere, genuine, and refreshingly straightforward. We did not make a deal the first time we spoke. I told him I wanted to shop around, and he did something apparently revolutionary in the car business: he let me.
No incessant phone calls. No “What can I do to get you into this car TODAY?” No pressure disguised as friendship. He respected the fact that I am an adult capable of making my own decisions.
When I was ready, I came back to him. We talked numbers, I told him where I needed to be, and we reached a price that I thought was fair and that I was comfortable with. His response was basically: “Great. What else do you need from me? I will get the car ready. Come down and we will take care of the paperwork.”
And here is the part that says a lot about Cruz: it was his day off. He was still willing to meet me whenever it worked for me and make sure everything was ready. Not because he was trying to force the sale across the finish line, but because that is simply how attentive and devoted he is to the people he works with.
Buying a car is a big deal. If I go out to dinner and spend a couple hundred dollars, I expect to have a great time. When I am spending tens of thousands of dollars, the experience should be more than tolerable. It should actually be exciting. Buying a car like a Miata should be fun. Cruz understood that.
He listened when I spoke, and he never tried to manufacture urgency or push me toward a decision. He is very relational. He genuinely wants you to have a good experience, not just while you are sitting at the dealership signing papers, but six months or a year later when you are still enjoying the car.
That is what stood out to me. Cruz is not just interested in whether you buy a car from him today. He cares whether you are happy that you bought it tomorrow. He wants you to come back, whether it is for service, another car someday, or simply to stop in and say hello. It also helps that Cruz genuinely loves cars. He is knowledgeable, personable, a good listener, and, perhaps most importantly, he laughed at my jokes with an enthusiasm that I choose to believe was completely sincere.
By the time I drove away, I did not feel like I had just completed a transaction with a salesman. I felt like I had bought a car from someone I trusted and genuinely enjoyed spending time with. I consider Cruz a friend now, and that probably says more about the experience than anything else I could write here.
Cruz Santamaria is officially my second-favorite Cruz, behind Penélope Cruz. But if you are looking to buy a Mazda, he is unquestionably my #1 Cruz.
Highly recommend.
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