TDN Weekend December 2016 Issue 9
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/947139
one year to return home because his father was ill and needed help running the family business. He decided to use his experience with RCA to start a business leasing cars and trucks to major companies throughout the country. He explained his vision to the president of the local bank and asked for a $100,000 line of credit. In two years, the line of credit shot up to $5 million, which forced Hertrich to go to another bank that could handle that kind of financial risk. That year, Hertrich had leased more than 3,000 cars, many of them manufactured by Ford, but he had a good track record for making payments. In 1975 when a Ford dealership named Cannon Motors lo- cated next to his father's dealership went bankrupt, Hertrich decided to buy it. The cost was $50,000–a similar dealership in today's currency would require a $5 million outlay–and once again he had to apply for a loan. At age 26, he became the youngest Ford dealer in America. He also became the first member of the Hertrich lineage to align himself with a brand other than Buick. This was at a time when people bought cars based on their loyalty to a particular brand. "Back in those days you were a Ford customer, a General Mo- tors customer or a Chrysler customer and there wasn't anything else," he says. "I couldn't tell my parents I bought the dealer- ship for two weeks. They were General Motors blue-blooded people."