Amid the stress of life and business in 2021, the automotive world lost a number of influential people who had spent their careers taking the industry to new levels. Here are some of them.
Leon Edwards, who died Jan. 16 at age 89, led the National Automobile Dealers Association at a time of legal strife as it agreed to a decade of antitrust oversight by the government rather than launch a "crippling" court fight.
Edwards, a Chevrolet dealer from Birmingham, Ala., was NADA president in 1995 when the association agreed to an antitrust settlement that called for 10 years of monitoring after the organization was accused of making illegal efforts to limit price competition in vehicle sales to consumers.
At the time, NADA leaders, including Edwards, said they opted to settle with the Justice Department rather than face litigation that they said would have cost at least $1 million to defend, according to an October 1995 story in Automotive News.
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