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Take a look at the sleek, ultra-modern Grubbs Infiniti auto dealership showroom in Euless, Texas. All that glass, chrome and steel – and all of those shiny G37 coupes – wouldn’t be there if Hubert Grubbs hadn’t steered himself to a small, dusty car lot and a new opportunity in life back in 1948.

The result? A thriving family business that has seen four generations of Grubbs men sell more than 150,000 cars – that’s 12 different auto brands – to North Texas customers in the past six decades. In the process, Hubert’s decision would end up sending his family on an entrepreneurial journey that would parallel the growth of the U.S. automobile industry.

“That’s the fun part of it, though – this business is new every month. The models change, the customers change, the technology changes, advertising changes,” says Hubert’s grandson, George Grubbs Jr.

But one thing has remained constant, and it’s kept the Grubbs family at the top of a competitive auto sales game for 62 years. “I saw that people really need to trust – that when you say something to them, that they can believe you. So it’s about establishing good relationships and trusting relationships and people having faith in the family name.”

The Grubbs name has become synonymous with car sales because in the late 1940s, Hubert Grubbs noticed a sudden demand for used cars thanks to war-related metal shortages. “The business really started with my grandfather, putting cars in front of his grocery store and enjoying the car part of it so much he ended up selling the grocery store and put in a car business,” says George Jr.

“Yeah, he saw the opportunity that you could make a lot more money selling a car than you could a loaf of bread,” he adds with a laugh.

Hubert’s son, George R. Grubbs, literally set up his own family in the auto sales business; the first home for his sons George Jr. and Eric was a trailer on the car lot. He may not have known it at the time, but George R. was instilling his same love for cars, and for building customer relationships, in his sons (brother Eric runs Grubbs Nissan in nearby Bedford.)

As a boy, George Jr. loved to watch the work done on cars; by this time, the Grubbs family was also offering service in addition to new car sales. “Just being able to hang around and see cars being repaired, seeing them being touched up, the paint work that was done, or maybe just the clean-up work, all the little mechanical things – it was a lot of fun, really, seeing all that stuff happening.”

But despite the proximity to the business, George R. never pushed his sons into following in his footsteps. “He said whatever you want to do, just do it and have passion and go after it,” George Jr. said. “And I realized this really was where my passion was and where the opportunity was, and I loved what I saw.”

What he noticed was innovation in auto sales. George R. Grubbs is credited with helping to pioneer the use of computers to track inventory, parts and customer buying trends. He was also one of the first to make use of local television commercials. George Jr. kept up that search for new ways to reach customers when he took over the business (at one point, he was the youngest Volkswagen dealer in the country).

“We’re seeing a continual change, and if you’re an entrepreneur that enjoys change and you can adapt to it, then it’s been great. You better not get stuck in the way you used to do things,” he said.

That philosophy is now uppermost in the mind of George Grubbs III – George III as he’s known in the family. Now in charge of operations at Grubbs Infiniti – with his father as a trusted partner and consultant – George III also found himself making his own decisions about his career despite being privy to dinner table strategy sessions and decision-making as a boy. “I wanted it to be their choice, and it was really rewarding when my son wanted to come into the business,” George Jr. said.

“I do remember the day my dad and I had the conversation, and it wasn’t so much of a passing of the baton but it was, ‘hey, I feel like you’re ready, and if you’re ready then I’m ready,’” George III said. “So we had that conversation, and I had to kind of find who I was going to be as a manager and realize that my role was going to be a little different from then on.”

That role continues to keep up with new technologies that are both empowering the average car shopper, and narrowing the distance between customer and dealer. Grubbs was one of the first dealerships to have a website, “so I’ve gotten to see from the very beginning when a website was just like a business card to how it is today, where you have full inventory search with 360-degree views and now we’re adding video and things like that,” George III said. “So we know that 90 percent of our customers are researching online, so we might as well be online. We give them as much information online as we can. And during their search process, we need to be in the middle of it so we make sure that our website’s up to date. We make sure that we use blogs and Twitter and Facebook, everything we can to communicate with our customers and make sure wherever they’re communicating online, we’re able to communicate back to them.”

But it’s not just those web-based, social media tools that have kept the customers coming back to that modern Infiniti dealership in Euless, he added. Grubbs Infiniti prides itself on being a no-pressure showroom, and for George III that means putting customer comfort before monthly quotas. “We’re not here to pressure anyone. We’re here to build relationships, we’re here to make friends, and even though it is a business we do have to ask for the business, but again, that relationship is the number one factor.”

Those relationships are why there isn’t just a connection between Grubbs men and the auto sales business. The customers have a long memory too.  “People do come in and say, ‘wow, I bought from your dad and I remember your granddad,’ and it’s amazing to see how they’ve continued to buy from us and they enjoy doing business with us, and to know that my dad and grandfather were both so active in the business back in the day, and now I get that opportunity too,” George III said.

And will the next generation of Grubbs children take over the reins? George Jr. seems to think so. “I always saw generations taking over. I mean, I see my grandkids taking over and be that fifth and sixth generation, and I see that as something that will probably continue to go on.”

For more information, go to www. grubbsinfiniti.com or www.grubbsnissan.com.