HOBART, Ind
At the end of the 81-year marriage, the Isaksons said goodbye by turning off the lights. The partnership was over.
The Chrysler sign went dark.
It was an unceremonious finale to a four-generation bond between one family and one company, but it was not a surprise. Rob Isakson had known for weeks his dealership was on a Chrysler hit list — the cuts were part of the troubled automaker's survival strategy.
Still, when the moment arrived, he did not go gently into the night.
"It hurts," he says. "How do you put into words 81 years of your family's blood, sweat and tears? How many times did my father miss some family event ... because the business came first? And all of it is for nothing now."
It has been a wrenching few weeks, beginning with Chrysler's notification in mid-May that the family was losing its franchise. The word came in a form letter. "How insensitive is that?" Isakson asks.
Then came futile efforts — through calls and e-mails — to find why they were being dropped, even though they say their sales were better than some dealers that survived.
Last week, a judge ruled for Chrysler: The bankrupt company, having sold most of its assets to Fiat SpA, the Italian automaker, could trim about a quarter of its dealer franchises.
Isakson Motor Sales was among the dealers to go. And thus ended a proud family history.
Their ties to Chrysler go back to 1928 when two Isakson brothers who were farmers invested $5,000 in an exciting new venture: the DeSoto. They opened a showroom, in the heart of what once was booming steel country, at an auspicious-sounding intersection — Front and Center.
Over nine decades, the names of the cars changed (Imperial, Valiant, Cordoba, Horizon, Duster, Reliant, New Yorker, Road Runner, Challenger, Voyager, PT Cruiser), but the name of the dealership did not. It was the Isaksons. Clarence and Walter. Bill. Rob. Eric and Steve.
Father to son, father to son, selling cars and handing over the keys to one, two, even three generations of customers, making a go of it even in the leanest years.
"How many businesses survive their first five years, or the next five?" Rob Isakson asks, huddled in his office with his 83-year-old father, Bill, and his two sons. "We survived 81 years of ups and downs in this industry. The stock market of '29 and the Depression ... World War II and rationing, the strike years with the steel mills and we survived, the loan guarantee years, which were tough years ... and we survived that, too."
"And now," he pauses, "we're surviving but Chrysler says we're not worth keeping."
"Am I angry?" he asks, then quickly answers. "You're darn right I am."
