David Fitzgerald still loves Chrysler, even if Chrysler doesn't love him.
He'll never get it out of his veins.
"I would bleed Chrysler blue if you cut me," he said.
At 49, Fitzgerald owns Northglenn Dodge, north of Denver, Colo., but he's changing the name to ngdcars.com and selling used cars after the troubled auto maker terminated his franchise along with 788 of its other dealers.
"I was up 14% in sales .. at a time when Chrysler was down 40%," Fitzgerald told me.
So why'd you cut get? I asked.
"It's a mystery, ain't it?"
Chrysler is emerging from bankruptcy with Fiat SpA, the United Auto Workers, and the U.S. and Canadian governments as its owners.
Shedding 25% of its dealer base was a necessary part of the reorganization, a judge ruled, despite dealer protests that went all the way to Congress.
"I can't fix this," Fitzgerald said. "This is a historic bankruptcy. All bets are off. All contracts are off. Why did I get cut? Well, I'm cut. So it doesn't really matter."
He's had to whittle down his work force to 60 from more than 100. He's unloading his inventory of new Dodge cars and trucks from his 10.2-acre lot. He's scrambling together a new business plan. And moving on.
"This is part of my heritage," Fitzgerald said. "My father loved the Chrysler Imperial .. and started selling Chrysler product in 1959."
Fitzgerald remembers when dealers kept service departments on upper floors, accessible by concrete ramps. They were a blast when he was about 3 years old.
"I was just big enough to grab a floor jack," he said, "and I got on top of it and rode it down the ramp. Now, I could have died .. but nothing happened except it bounced off the railing at the end of the ramp."
Throughout his early years, Fitzgerald and his brothers swept floors, picked up trash, mowed lawns and washed cars. "If I wasn't in school, I was at the dealership working," he said.
In the late 1970s, Fitzgerald's father struggled with alcoholism, and Chrysler found itself pleading for government assistance.
"I came in one day and my key didn't fit," Fitzgerald said. "The locks had been changed because my father hadn't paid the sales taxes in nine months."
This quickly became front-page fodder.
"Let's just say the news reports weren't kind," he said. "Chrysler was in all this trouble, and here was a local dealer's store shut, repossessed, cars pulled out and parked in the back -- the worst thing that could ever happen to a car dealer.
"My mother was afraid to go to the grocery store," he recalled. "We left town pretty much in shame."
But from there, the Fitzgerald family made a comeback that was every bit as impressive as Chrysler's.
Fitzgerald's father went into treatment, never had another drink, and with help from an investor, acquired a bankrupt Toyota dealership in Pueblo, Colo.
Japanese cars were no easy sell in a union steel town in the early 1980s, yet the Fitzgeralds turned the dealership's fortunes.
"There wasn't very good salesmanship when we came in," Fitzgerald recalled. "These guys wandered around with sunglasses and cigarettes and talked about how the color of the tires matched the ladies' hair. It was a comedy."
The Fitzgerald's then went into the business of taking over troubled dealerships, boosting their sales, and selling them for a profit.
"I became a dealer when I was 27 years old," Fitzgerald recalls.
Eventually, he wanted a dealership he would operate on his own, as opposed to just flip, so he set his sights back to Northglenn.
"I chose to purchase this dealership in 1992 because it's where I grew up, and I believe in selling American cars," he said.
Over the years, he's collected 54 cars, most of them show-ready.
He's got a 1971 Plymouth 'Cuda with a Hemi; a 1971 Plymouth GTX with a Hemi; a 1969 Dodge Daytona with -- yeah, it's got a Hemi. He's also maintained his late father's enthusiasm for Imperials, even holding five rare Chrysler Imperial Ghia Limousines -- built between 1957 and 1965.
"When I come home at night, I take off my suit, spend time with my family .. and then I go out to my garage and work on my cars."
Fitzgerald said fretting about losing his Dodge franchise is a waste of time. Contracts, agreements and life-long loyalties mean nothing in bankruptcy court.
"This is heart-wrenching for me because I am a Dodge guy. I will always be a Dodge guy, even if I wind up selling something else .. But for me to complain is going to keep me from recovering."
He learned a long time ago that it's better to cheer.
"I'm going to be rooting for Chrysler to make it," Fitzgerald said. "The survival of the company that I still love depends upon it."
(Al's Emporium, written by Dow Jones Newswires columnist Al Lewis, offers commentary and analysis on a wide range of business subjects through an unconventional perspective. The column is published each Tuesday and Thursday at 9 a.m. ET. Contact Al at al.lewis@dowjones.com or tellittoal.com)
