Under warranty.

• Author: Speizer, Irwin
• Position: Hendrick Automotive Group Pres and CEO Jim Perkins

With Rick Hendrick no longer in the driver's seat, Jim Perkins wheels and deals the nation's largest private dealership chain.

Jim Perkins worships cars - but not all cars equally. He adores the rotund American roadsters of the '30s and '40s, admires the originality of the Corvair, stands in awe of the elegant '57 Chevy. Today he is driving a black, top-of-the-line BMW 740IL. To him, it's a functional vehicle, certainly, but lacking the raw power of the '60s American muscle cars or the pizazz of the prewar era. "I like the full-fendered cars. The old classic Buick, the Caddy, to me just had all the style." For a moment, he drifts back to sitting in his father's lap in Waco, Texas, behind the wheel of a 1938 Chevy coupe.

But the company-owned Beemer parked outside reminds him he is in the office of Rick Hendrick - once one of the most successful car dealers in the country, now stricken by leukemia and stripped of his position by a federal mail-fraud conviction. Perkins, a longtime auto-company executive who took over as president and CEO last August, sits in Hendrick's seat - literally - at the Charlotte headquarters of Hendrick Automotive Group, surrounded by his predecessor's plaques and memorabilia.

Hendrick, 48, created the nation's largest privately held chain of dealerships - now 75 in nine states, with $2.43 billion in revenues last year. But after a scandal in which some Honda dealers were accused of bribing American Honda Motor Co. executives, he pleaded guilty in August to the felony charge. Now it's Perkins' turn behind the wheel, trying to put the company back on track after losing its charismatic leader. "The main thing you don't try to do is be Rick Hendrick," Perkins says. "There is only one. He built the business. I didn't."

Perkins' first task was simply to keep Hendrick Automotive from falling apart. Car makers have policies against doing business with felons and can yank franchise agreements. "We could not let that happen," he says. "The company would have been piece-mealed out and would have been gone."

It took some quick maneuvering to prevent that. Hendrick transferred his 50% stake to a trust for other family members and appointed his accountant, Bobby Rice of Raleigh, trustee. Perkins, who had been a consultant to the company after retiring as a General Motors Corp. executive in 1996, took charge of operations. He hustled to convince manufacturers that Hendrick was out of the picture, while at the same time reassuring employees in his down-home Texas style that the company was in good hands. The changes were not just to satisfy manufacturers. Most states, including North Carolina, bar felons from holding dealership licenses.

By April, Perkins was ready to declare victory, having lost only three dealerships - all Mazda. "We have kept the company intact," he says. But it is not in the clear yet. It is still waiting on renewals of its 17 Honda dealerships, the biggest brand in its stable, and for its three Acura. Perkins claims to have verbal agreements, but Honda officials say only that negotiations continue. Last year, Honda didn't renew "several" dealerships, says spokesman Phil Garner, and each was owned by someone convicted in the bribery cases. But, he adds, none of them relinquished control the way Hendrick has.

All the reshuffling didn't keep Mazda...