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On June 10, 1950, Dan Pfeiffer sold a brand-new, black, six-cylinder Ford two-door. The trade-in was a 1941 blue-and-silver Chevrolet. But it's not the fact that the Ford buyer's nephew works for Pfeiffer today that makes this sale stand out among the thousands of cars he has sold since 1950. This was the first car Dan Pfeiffer ever sold.
"You never forget your first deal," Pfeiffer said. He was fresh out of Byron Center High School, having graduated the year before. "I grew up on a farm and Dad thought I should stay there and take over the farm. It would have been a good opportunity, but I had carbon monoxide in my veins. And it's still there; I can't get rid of it," he said, smiling and adding that except for a two-year tour of duty in the military in Korea, "That's all I've ever done, is sell cars."
And sell cars he has, thousands and thousands of them. In 1996, Pfeiffer's Infiniti, Hummer and to Lincoln-Mercury dealerships sold 3,000 new and used cars. The parts business did more than $8 million in sales last year, primarily to body shops statewide. A fleet of trucks supports that part of the business and Pfeiffer said the goal this year is $9 million.
The wisdom that has brought Pfeiffer to that level of success is a combination of hardcore business acumen and homespun practicality mined from his rich farm heritage. "I started in the little town of Byron Center where we sold 150 cars a year," Pfeiffer recalled. Toward the end of his decade there, his father became ill. After auctioning off the farm's cattle, Pfeiffer borrowed the proceeds from his father to buy a used-car lot.
"In 1960, I went down to 'The Avenue' (South Division) and opened...