Engines on

Robert Elder learned the car business sitting around his kitchen table, growing up just outside Detroit. In 1983, his father James Elder, who founded Elder Ford, died.

That left a leadership void and a questionable future. Then the Ford Motor Co. did something unusual: It gave Elder's widow, Irma Elder, the chance to run the dealership — the first time that ever happened at Ford.

The younger Elder remembers those times as a 12-year-old, seeing his mother slave over accounting ledgers and contracts at the kitchen table.