Jim Coleman, whose family has operated Crater Lake Motors since 1950, will turn over control of the area's oldest surviving auto dealership next week.

Coleman, 67, is selling the Ford, Lincoln-Mercury and Mazda Biddle Road dealerships to Don Knudson, vice president of Denny Menholt Frontier Chevrolet in West Billings, Mont., for the past eight years.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

"He contacted me last spring and said he really liked the store and our area, and would like to raise his family here," Coleman says. "My children (four married daughters) didn't have any interest in the business and are doing very well on their own. One day my wife asked if I was going to die at my desk. She said there are other things we would like to do in life. It makes sense to do the other things while we can."

Coleman was 12 years old when his father, Hugh, bought Crater Lake Motors from Clarence Winetrout in 1950.

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"We lived in the Bay Area at the time," Coleman recalls. "I had friends and acquaintances, and it was hard to move."

Soon, he was helping out at the downtown dealership that occupied much of the block now dominated by the Evergreen Way parking structure and for much of two blocks on North Fir Street. His first assignment was in the parts department and in the service department. Later on, he worked in sales while attending the University of Oregon.

After graduating from college he went to work in the Bay Area until his dad offered him a job in a developing phase of the auto industry during 1962.

"Leasing was becoming popular at the time and he asked me to organize a lease company," Coleman says.

Hugh Coleman bought the Avis car rental franchise at the airport and Jim took charge of Southern Oregon Lease Co., whose customers included Snyder's Dairy and Big Pines Lumber Co.

Coleman became general manager at Crater Lake Motors after his uncle moved to Alaska in 1966 and he became the principal owner in 1968. During the mid-1960s, Crater Lake Ford sponsored Medford's American Legion baseball team.

"American Legion teams oftentimes use corporate names and at the time," Coleman says. "But the Mustang was popular and we thought it would be a great name — the Medford Mustangs."

Although the sponsorship ended a quarter-century ago, the affiliation left a lasting legacy because a summer baseball team of some of the area's best 16- to 18-year-old baseball players is still called the Medford Mustangs.

As Medford's commercial district grew away from the downtown core in the 1970s, it became more difficult to operate with the company strewn over more than three blocks. But two rounds of Arab oil boycott-induced gas shortages in the 1970s combined with a declining timber industry chilled possible moves.

"We laid low for a few years," Coleman says.

Then in 1984, Coleman bought seven acres on Biddle Road for $460,000 and announced the dealership was moving. The present site opened in 1985.

"We were scared to death," Coleman recalls. "It was a big change and we spent a lot of money It seemed like a long ways out and past the traffic patterns we were used to. But as it turned out, it was a great change. From the get-go, business increased, it was much better for our customers and it was much easier to display vehicles."

Coleman says he doesn't recall how much his father paid for the dealership 56 years ago, but annual sales were about $100,000. That's a drop in the bucket compared to annual sales of $50 million now.

"I'll still have a small office so I can handle the residual issues and contingencies," Coleman says.

"But I'll be spending more time with the grandkids and hunting and fishing. It will be a new chapter."

Reach reporter Greg Stiles at 776-4463 or e-mail business@mailtribune.com.