Longtime Columbus auto dealer dies at age 82 after years of battling Parkinson’s

Charles Levy, a longtime Columbus automobile dealer, died Wednesday in an Atlanta nursing home after a decades-long fight with Parkinson’s disease, his family said Thursday.

Levy was 82. A graveside service will be held Sunday at 3 p.m. in Arlington Cemetery, 201 Mount Vernon Highway in Atlanta.

Though Levy spent the last 10 years living in an Atlanta nursing facility, his roots and business success came over 52 years of selling automobiles in Columbus.

After graduating from Columbus High School in 1953, Levy attended college in Florida and came back to Columbus to work as an auctioneer traveling throughout Alabama and Georgia with his uncle, Harold Cohn. They sold a lot of cattle and cars and Cohn began to buy some cars and would resell them.

It wasn’t long before Levy got into the car business, his younger brother, Mark, remembered.

“Charles was recently married and they were doing these auctions in Roanoke, Sylacauga, Atlanta, all over,” Mark said. “Charles was looking to get off the road so much, so he went into the car business.”

In 1955, Levy started Charles Levy Motor Company, a used car lot on what was then Fourth Avenue, but is now Veterans Parkway, in downtown Columbus. He grew that small company into a string of dealerships that eventually ended up on Box Road.

“From 1956 through the Vietnam War, he did a lot of business,” Mark said. “He sold a lot of cars to soldiers over the years.”

Levy’s son, Jake, said the military business was especially important to his father.

“Fort Benning meant a great deal to him and he had a lot of customers from there,” Jake said. “He built relationships over the years with a lot of different people at Fort Benning from sergeants to colonels, and they became his customers.”

Jake tells a story to illustrate that.

“Many years ago, he took a trip to China with Mazda, which he was selling at the time,” Jake said. “They took a bus out to the Great Wall of China. My dad was standing on the Great Wall and a man came up to and asked if he was Charles Levy. The man then told him he had bought a car from him when he was a soldier at Fort Benning.”

After more than 20 years on Fourth Avenue, Levy opened a dealership on Box Road in midtown Columbus. In addition to a thriving used-car business, Levy also had the Mazda, Mitsubishi Motors, BMW, Suzuki and Yugo brands at times.

“Now, Yugo was a disaster,” Mark said.

Levy was in the local automobile business until he completely sold out in 2007.

Mark worked for four or five years with his brother before starting his own car business. The two had a special relationship because of their 12-year age difference, Mark said.

“Because of that age difference, a lot of people thought he was my father,” Mark said. “And when I came a long in the business, a lot of people just assumed he was my father.”

Jake watched his father struggle with Parkinson’s disease — a progressive nervous system disorder that affects movement — for more than three decades.

“My father did not let Parkinson’s define him,” Jake said. “He figured out how to live his life with the disease. He figured out how to travel and do the things he loved. He figured out how to make adjustments in his life so he could still enjoy his life.”

Levy was preceded in death by his daughter, Dr. Robyn Levy. He is survived by his daughter, Susan Levy; son and daughter-in-law, Jake and Rosester Levy; son-in-law, Steven Goodman; grandchildren, Elaina, Isabella and Juliana Levy; his brother Mark and his wife, Devon; and sister and brother-in-law, Rita and Alan Rosenthal.

This story was originally published August 23, 2018 at 2:29 PM.