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Trudeau Motors Limited was a Plymouth, Chrysler dealership on Station Street in the '40s. the Bell Boulevard and North Front Street location, where Best Western Hotel is currently, the Trudeaus had a truck and farm machinery dealership. "The truck lot was on the North Front side and the farm machinery was off of Bell Boulevard," continued Trudeau. At the time when his father began establishing his business in Belleville there were two GM, two Chrysler and two Ford dealerships in the city, said Trudeau. "It was the same in many communities. There were dealerships in Stirling, Picton and even in a tiny place like Tweed they had Ford, Chrysler and GM dealerships those days," said Trudeau. Starting in the '60s and the 70s, Trudeaus Motors got involved in leasing business and by '80s, the business had a large leasing fleet. Noting the jump in the prices of automobiles over time, he said: "Back in the '50s Chevrolet was priced at $1,700 nowadays it's about $ 27,000.1 had a Corvette in 1975 and that was worth about $7,500 and today, a Corvette is worth about $75,000. It has gone up that much." Trudeau recalled learning to drive at the age of 16 and although he had all kinds of cars accessible to him through his father's business, he said his father would no let him have a free hand. "He was very careful and strict as a parent. He expected my brother and I to work very hard, probably harder than the employees and we did that for many many years." The family sold the General Motors dealership in 1996 and went on to run the Saturn dealership until recently, said Trudeau. Taking note of his father's business success in Belleville since 1936, he concluded: "We had tremendous number of customers in this area. It was because we put a lot of focus on treating people fairly and giving excellent service. We've always done that right from the Ford days. On top of that over the years we've had wonderful employees and they're the ones who made it happen. We had many employees that worked with us as many as 40 years and many over 20 years." Contact Benzie Sangma at: bsangma@cogeco.ca