Pickup Test Drive Takes a Bad Turn Into a Hijacking : Crime: Two men posing as potential customers force a salesman for a Westminster car dealer to turn over the $28,000 truck at gunpoint and speed off.

When auto salesman Tony Armstrong took his first customer out for a test drive Friday morning, he asked if he could “frisk” the man before they drove off.

Armstrong was kidding, but who could blame him?

The night before, the 48-year-old native of Great Britain survived a frightening ordeal during which two men, posing as potential buyers, took him on a 30-minute test drive in a new truck, then ordered him out of the vehicle at gunpoint.

“It was quite a little sojourn,” Armstrong said. “They pulled into a dark alley, pointed the gun at me and said, ‘Get out.’ I’m an obliging kind of fellow, so I got out.”

Armstrong, who moved to Orange County seven years ago, said salespeople at the Mike McCarthy Buick-Subaru-GMC dealership where he works are trained not to take risks in this type of situation.

“We are trained to just give them (the vehicle), but I always thought, ‘No way, I’ll wrestle them to the ground,’ and all this brave stuff. But when the moment came, I thought better of it.”

Although only two men went on the test drive with Armstrong, a third man arrived with them at the dealership and appeared to be involved in the execution of the crime, which Armstrong and police said seemed to have been well-planned.

The three men initially came to the dealership on Wednesday and told Armstrong that they wanted to test drive a truck. But the business was about to close so they were told to come back the next day.

“They seemed like nice guys. They made an appointment and came back,” Armstrong said.

While on the drive, the men insisted on taking the vehicle on the freeway. After driving about 35 miles on the San Diego, Riverside and Santa Ana freeways, Armstrong said he became concerned and told the men that they would have to return to the dealership.

“I said we’ve got to stop this truck and take it back,” Armstrong said. “He pulled off and next thing I know, the guy in the back seat is pointing a gun at me. I asked him, ‘What are you going to do? Shoot me?’ And he said, ‘No, you’re a nice guy.’

“After I got out, one of the guys said, ‘Sorry dude,’ then they drove off.”

The suspects escaped with a bright teal-colored 271 Sierra GMC truck. The truck, worth about $28,000, can be used as an off-road vehicle. It has an extended cab and the body of the truck is lifted high above the wheels. It has black paper license plates with the dealership’s name on it, said Tom Ramstead, owner of the dealership.

“They are not going to be able to drive around in that truck and not be recognized,” Ramstead said.

Armstrong was left stranded near Orangethorpe Avenue and Lemon Street in Anaheim. He called police and officers gave him a lift back to the dealership, located in the 15000 block of Beach Boulevard.

Police described the robbers as a 25-year-old white male with blond hair shaved on both sides, 6 feet, 2 inches tall and 160 pounds and a 25-year-old Latino male with a shaved head, 200 pounds, 5-feet-9. The third man was described only as a 25-year-old, 5-feet-10 and 200 pounds.

Armstrong said he is taking the ordeal in stride, but he added: “I don’t know what the world is coming to anymore. I didn’t get shot, so I’m probably lucky. There are plenty of people out there who are getting shot. It’s a war.”