Legendary Lee

after more than a half century in the business, car dealer extraordinaire Lee Markquart is driving off into the sunset

Tom Giffey |

For a man whose name is synonymous with automobiles in the Chippewa Valley, Lee Markquart remains humble even as he reflects on his recent retirement after 70 years in the car business. He downplays his talents (“I probably wasn’t the best car salesman in a world,” he says, expressing a sentiment several generations of car buyers likely would disagree with) and brushed off his family’s suggestion they throw a retirement party.

“It was time for me to move on,” explains Markquart, founder of Markquart Motors and Markquart Toyota, when asked about retiring at age 82. “The big things have been done. The kids know how to run it – they run it better than I could.”

“We depend on people to really love their Toyotas, to really love their Cadillacs, and to talk about it. It’s an emotional thing in many respects. It’s a reflection of their personalities.” – Lee Markquart, on the connection between drivers and cars

Those “kids,” Dave and John, are now well-known and long-established in the car business themselves. (Two other siblings, Paul and Jeanne, are Lutheran ministers; their mother, Mary, died in 2010.) Today, a member of a third generation – grandson Charlee – is now a manager in the business. But it was Lee Markquart who led the way. “You just develop certain instinctive things,” he says when asked about his sales success. “I always had a persuasive vocabulary, and it was good for sales and leadership.” Markquart is quick to credit his family, friends, and especially employees with his success. Hiring good people, he explained, “is the most important thing you can do, other than taking care of the customer.”

HOUSEHOLD NAME ... AND FACE

Oddly enough, Markquart’s self-effacing approach fits well with the countless TV ads that made him instantly recognizable. For more than 25 years, those ads – originally produced by a company called Creative Advertising in Phoenix, Ariz. – put Markquart himself front and center. Unlike many auto ads, there was no fast-paced music, no balloons and confetti, no fast-talking sales pitch. Just Markquart, friendly and calming, standing in front of a pale blue painting of an eagle in a mock-up office, talking about community values and reputation, not low low low! car prices. In fact, the ads weren’t really about cars as all, at least directly.

“I didn’t know if it could work in a small town, but it was very appealing to me,” Markquart says of the strategy, which Creative Advertising had used in other parts of the United States. However, the approach appealed to viewers and car buyers, too: It set Markquart apart and helped cement him – and now his family – as the region’s most well-know auto dealer.

SEVEN-DECADE CAREER

Markquart’s career in the car business began 70 years ago when, as a 12-year-old, he pumped gas at his father’s service station in Jackson, Minn. By the time Lee was a teen, his dad had become a Hudson (and later an Oldsmobile) dealer. After graduating from Macalester College in St. Paul and serving a stint in the Air National Guard, the young Markquart rejoined the family dealership. He attended the General Motors Institute in Flint, Mich., to learn more about the business, and gradually the dealership grew to include Cadillac, GMC small trucks, and Rambler. By 1963, he’d formed a corporation, Markquart Motors, with his father, and in 1965, they had consolidated all the General Motors vehicle lines – which also included Chevrolet, Pontiac, and Buick – under one roof.

Markquart was successful, but he was itching for a new challenge, a challenge that wouldn’t be possible in a town with barely 3,000 residents. In 1970, he relocated to Eau Claire to become a Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Cadillac dealer. It was a risk, but a calculated one: “It’s easier for someone like me to move into a larger community than for someone from a larger community to move into a small town,” he says. In a small town, he adds, building relationships is key.

The rest, as they say, is history: Today, the businesses that bear Marquart’s name are the biggest new-vehicle dealerships in the Chippewa Valley. In a training manual he wrote for company employees, titled “The Great Game,” Markquart offered a synopsis of his career as a serial entrepreneur: “Since 1964, I have purchased eight dealerships, closed two, consolidated one, split two and sold five to a stranger, a friend, two sons, and to two nephews and a brother-in-law.” (Among those he got started in the businesses was another household name in the Chippewa Valley, Ken Vance.)

STABILITY AND CHANGE

It’s a vast understatement to say that automobiles evolved during Markquart’s career: Compare the tailfins of a mid-50s Oldsmobile to the plug-in Chevy Volt of the 21st century. The industry has changed drastically, too: When it accounted for more than half the U.S. auto market in the ’50s, it was inconceivable that GM would go bankrupt, as it did in 2009. Markquart acknowledges that he likely would have retired a few years ago if it hadn’t been for the business disruption caused by the Great Recession and the GM bankruptcy.

But while times have changed, Markquart says the fundamentals of selling cars are the same: “It’s about talking to people in a sincere way,” he says.

He continues: “People depend on their cars, and they either have a love affair or a hate affair with their cars.” While price is a major factor for buyers, it’s not the biggest one, he says: “We depend on people to really love their Toyotas, to really love their Cadillacs, and to talk about it. It’s an emotional thing in many respects. It’s a reflection of their personalities.”

And while drivers often develop strong brand loyalty, Markquart himself is coy when asked about his favorites: “People ask me what car I like the best. I like cars that sell the best,” he quips. Right now, Markquart has a Cadillac XTS, but he says the Buick Riviera was fun to drive, too. “The beauty of being a car dealer is when you get 2,000 miles on a car, you get another one,” he says with a laugh.