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RD Sawyer to no longer be a Ford dealership, but ‘we’ll still be here’

The Ford signs will be coming down for good at the RD Sawyer Motor Company, Inc. As of August 30, the company is transitioning to an independent car dealership.

This difficult decision comes after almost 80 years of auto service to the Outer Banks community.

In 1946, Roland Dock Sawyer Sr. opened a car dealership on Ananias Dare Street across from Mt. Olivet in downtown Manteo. It was called – and is still called today – the RD Sawyer Motor Company, Inc.

One of Roland’s sons, Byron, now 86, remembers sweeping the floors and taking out the trash at that first dealership when he was a young boy. The business moved to a new location on Highway 64 (what is now Manteo Marine).

The family sold Dodges and Plymouths until 1954, when they started selling Fords.

“We sold more new cars that first year than in all the years we sold Dodge and Plymouth,” Byron said. “People didn’t like those.”

For 70 years, the company has flourished as a Ford dealership owned and run by the Sawyer family.

Roland and his two sons, Byron and RD Jr., helped with the business.

“When dad’s health got bad, [RD] took over,” Byron remembers. “He was my best man at my wedding and he still is.”

For a few sweet years in the late 1980s, three generations of Sawyer men worked together – Roland and his brother Calvin, Byron, and RD’s son, RD “Dock” Sawyer III, who currently runs the business with his wife, Robin.

In March of 1986, the business moved to its current location.

Dock took over as dealer principal. Just like Byron, he had gotten his start by sweeping floors and picking up trash. His first official job at the dealership was sanding a 64 white Chevrolet sedan with a galvanized bucket and a sheet of sandpaper.

“It took me three hours. My hands were almost raw,” he recalled. “When I was finished, my dad gave me another sheet of sandpaper, pointed to another car and said, ‘Now do that one.’”

He worked at the dealership during the summers and throughout college. After six years teaching band in Yanceyville, he came home to stay. He took over the dealership in 1996.

In all these years, Dock said, there was only one time he forgot to tighten the lug nuts. He caught it backing out the driveway. “It didn’t feel right.”

The hands of time continued to shift. Roland died in 1989, and in 2016, his son RD Jr. passed away.

The internet changed the way that people lived, including the way that they buy cars.

“It’s changed so much it’s unbelievable,” Byron said of the car industry.

The typical buyer walks onto a new car lot knowing all the facts and features about the vehicle they’re considering, including what the dealer paid for it.

“There is no proprietary information,” said Robin, who serves as the general manager of RD Sawyer Motor Company. “They know everything.”

The auto industry is unique in this. “Do you go into [the local furniture shop] and say, ‘I know exactly what you paid for that sofa. I’m not going to pay that price,’” she asked.

During Covid, the dealership thrived because they had inventory when other dealerships didn’t. However, when the pandemic ended and demand settled down, larger dealerships were able to offer prices below invoice.

“I can’t my sell my cars below invoice,” Robin said. “Other dealerships can because they make up for it in volume.”

She joined the company in 2015 after retiring as a journalism teacher in Manteo and First Flight high schools. In the auto industry, staying competitive meant adapting to the digital world. “[The dealership] needed a different skillset, but it was mine,” Robin said.

But even since 2015, Robin said the car business has changed dramatically. There are significant requirements associated with being a franchise. Robin estimates the dealership pays $100,000 a year in fees to be a Ford dealer.

Robin and Dock have one daughter, and Byron has three daughters. None of them were interested in carrying on the family business.

“We’re not going to work forever,” the current owners said. So, two years ago, they started working on an exit plan. Dock and Robin worked with an attorney who specialized in acquisitions and closings for car dealerships. They found a buyer they knew who already owned a Ford franchise and started negotiating in January 2023. More than a year later, in April of 2024, they signed papers.

After the details are negotiated between the buyer and the seller, Robin explained, the next step is for the buyer to apply to Ford for permission to purchase the franchise. The deal is contingent on Ford’s permission.

According to Robin, Ford uses four criteria to determine potential candidates: capital, capacity, character and customer satisfaction.

The buyer did not meet Ford’s criteria. “We thought by Christmas we were retiring. And then [Ford said] no,” Robin said.

Shortly after, a representative from Ford came in person to meet with the owners, and offered to buy out the franchise. Not to buy the dealership, but to buy back the Ford affiliation. They had a week to decide.

In the meeting, Robin remembers saying repeatedly, “This is so unfair to our customers. You’re telling our customers they’re worthless. There are people here who love Ford.”

The family talked together and talked to their lawyer, who advised them to take the deal. “He said we would be fools to turn this down. You’ll never see that money again,” Robin remembers of the conversation.

Upon sharing the news with friends and customers, longtime customer Ronnie Van O’Neal Jr. said he felt like a member of his family had died. Another customer, Stevie Ruhle, added up the number of cars both new and used that his family has purchased from RD Sawyer over the years and it totaled 43.

“We’re all trying to hold it together, to provide a place for friends a family to buy a vehicle that they trust,” Robin said.

“On August 30, we will cease to be a Ford dealership. We will transition to being an independent car dealership,” she stated. The company will maintain a service department, but will not perform Ford warranty work. Anyone who wants Ford warranty service will be required to travel to other dealerships.

Ford is in the process of trading the new stock that remains on the lot. The owners say they’re streamlining, and everyone will have to wear a few extra hats for a while. Because they will not be performing warranty work, they anticipate fewer service needs. “On Mondays in the summer, we might have 20 towed cars here from tourists who can’t go home,” Robin said. “That goes away.”

What doesn’t go away, Dock said, are the owners, the employees, the building, and the name. The only things going away are the signs.

“You stand in the showroom for five minutes and you’ll see me,” Dock said. “We’re a dying breed – hands on. You know, like the Wizard of Oz, behind the curtain? I’m not behind the curtain. I answer my cell phone 24/7.”

There is a sense of grief, but there’s also relief. The pressure of being a Ford dealer “has grown and grown and grown” over the years, Robin said.

“It’s a blessing,” said service manager Vic Jantti of the transition. “We’ll just keep right on rolling and rolling with less headache.” Jantti said a lot of people understand the reasons for the change and even like it.

Come September, RD Sawyer Motor Company will have a new logo and a new website. They will continue to sell used vehicles, which has been the source of most of their sales anyway. And, because of their connections, the owners say they will still be able to find specific vehicles for customers at auctions. And they still know Fords.

So what exactly does the future hold for RD Sawyer Motor Company?

“It sounds terrible to say, but we don’t know,” Robin said. The owners are hoping, in the next few years, to find someone in the car business who will be interested in purchasing their dealership.

In the meantime, “For the foreseeable future, we are not going anywhere,” Robin said. “It’s going to be different, but we’ll figure that out as we go along. We’ll still be here, trying to help the people we love and care about.”

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