DETROIT (WWJ) – Longtime Cadillac car dealer Don Massey has died. He was 83. A friend says Massey had congestive heart failure.

Massey owned Don Massey Cadillac in Plymouth and several other dealerships throughout the country before selling them to Sonic Automotive. Funeral arrangements are pending.

Massey arrived in Detroit decades ago from Tennessee with just 300 dollars to his name.

Massey got his first taste of the automobile business at the tender age of 14, when he held a summer job at a Dodge dealership in Florida.

Later in life, Massey married and moved to Michigan, where in 1961, he opened a used car lot in Wayne. In 1966 Massey moved on to buy a Cadillac dealership in Plymouth.

About 15 years later, Massey began to grow his business and over the next decade, opened dealerships all over the country.

At the end of the century, Massey’s annual sales were approaching the $1 billion mark.