The year was 1996, and Bill Heard Jr. made a bold prediction after learning in a trade magazine that his company, with seven dealerships, was the fifth-ranked auto group in the nation.
It was also the same year his burgeoning auto empire topped $1 billion in sales.
"If we have seven more (stores) in the right cities, we'll be the No. 1 retailer of cars in the world," the low-key Heard told the Ledger-Enquirer in one of his rare interviews.
A Bill Heard employee locks the gate to the flagship dealership in Columbus for the last time Wednesday.
- Shannon Szwarc
Driven by ambition, the Columbus businessman eventually did reach 19 dealerships — 16 of them Chevrolet outlets — with 2000 sales approaching $2 billion annually.
He appeared to be at the pinnacle in 2004, when General Motors honored him as "Dealer of the Year" at a swank gala in New York City. The top Chevy dealer in the United States, he brought home the Jack Smith Leadership Award, named after the retired GM chairman and CEO.
"Bill Heard is awarded GM's highest honor, because he has distinguished himself as the best of the best in our dealership network and we celebrate his accomplishments, both in business and in his community," John Smith, vice president of vehicle sales in North America, said at the time.
For Heard, the son of a respected auto dealer, that was the top of the mountain. That also is seemingly eons away from the a financial meltdown that forced the businessman to close his auto empire Wednesday, less than three weeks after his 74th birthday.
THE BEGINNING
The business was built methodically by his father, William Tillman Heard, a former Georgia Power Co. employee who launched an auto company in 1919. He would buy out Muscogee Motor Co., the city's Chevrolet dealer at the corner of First Avenue and 15th Street in downtown Columbus, in 1932.
Bill Jr. would take the reins of the company after the death of his 79-year-old dad in 1961. After all, he had worked several jobs at his father's car lots. He would push the business to new heights, becoming more and more aggressive with each passing year.
"His father was more conservative, more content," Frank Bullard, a former Bill Heard executive, said in the 1996 article about story on the auto dealer. "Bill is motivated. He's in early — not on the golf course. He's an example setter."
In the same story, John Illges — a retired Columbus businessman who attended grade school, Columbus High and Auburn University with the younger Heard — said this about him: "He was raised determined to be the best he could be. Some people might say, ‘If somebody gave me a car dealership, I could succeed.’ But Bill took it and maximized ... He wanted to be the biggest."
Losing his father appeared to be a defining moment and intense motivation for Heard, who had yet to turn 30 years old. Shortly after his father's death, Muscogee Motor Co. was renamed Bill Heard Chevrolet.
The wheels began to turn, with the company fast outgrowing its downtown location, having to rent several parcels of property to store its cars and trucks.
The sales pace picked up, enough so that in 1965 Heard adopted the moniker "Mr. Big Volume." The ad campaign, often accompanied by a booming voice in television and radio commercials, came to symbolize the stratospheric growth of the auto dealer.
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