Salesman, 88, has no plans to retire

"Just stick with Chrysler, and you'll be fine."

Those were the words then-Chrysler CEO Lee Iacocca shared with Bernie Zeidman in the early 1980s, during a national meeting in Las Vegas.

And that's exactly what Zeidman did.

The 88-year-old salesman has been in the car business for 64 years — and has no plans to retire.

"What am I going to do? Retire and sit at home?" said Zeidman. "All of my friends that had retired earlier now are gone. They're not around anymore."

Zeidman never planned on a career in automotive retail. In 1953, he was laid off from his job as a material equipment analyzer on a submarine base. Taking his wife and son, the 24-year-old Zeidman moved from New Hampshire to California to find work.

In the Golden State, he landed a position as a machinist making gyros for airplanes — only to be laid off three months later.

"I needed a job real bad, so I looked in the paper, and there was an ad in there for a salesperson at Verdugo Motors," said Zeidman. He would go on to work there for 23 years, moving up to sales manager and, eventually, general sales manager.

Though he later moved from dealership to dealership, joining Burbank Dodge in Burbank in 1976 and Valley Dodge of Van Nuys a decade later, Zeidman stuck with Chrysler.

He has been selling at Valley Dodge, now known as Russell Westbrook Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram, for 32 years.

"It was good. To me, they had great products, especially in the earlier years. We had all those muscle cars, and I just like the product," said Zeidman. "I could get my salespeople at that time really worked up over it, so we had no problem selling them."

Zeidman especially loves the Dodge Challenger SRT Demon, with its 840 hp, body design and brawny look. At home, though, he drives a 2017 Chrysler 300.

During his career, Zeidman has had a number of celebrity clients. He recalls selling a Dodge Grand Caravan to actress Elizabeth Taylor in the mid-1990s. She was purchasing it for her assistant. Zeidman delivered it right to her door.

Zeidman also sold a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat to Tim Allen and a Viper to Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1990s — at a time when the sticker price for a Viper was around $58,000, Zeidman said.

Though he's passionate about cars, Zeidman had a hobby outside work. For almost 40 years, Zeidman was an international big-game hunter, traveling the world and hunting everything from elephants in Africa to Kodiak bears in Alaska.

Zeidman prowled Africa in a Toyota Land Cruiser or pickup, with the help of seasoned trackers who he said "never miss a drop of blood" as they pass through tall blades of grass.

But he gave up hunting two years ago when, he said, he received a sign from God.

"I gave it up because somebody up above told me, 'No more shooting,' and it really impacted me," said Zeidman. "When I got to thinking that these things have a heart, they got feelings ... who the hell am I to go put a bullet in them? That changed my whole way of thinking.

"I can't even swat a fly now. It's crazy, but it's true," said Zeidman. "If I do anything now, it'll be with a camera, not with a gun."

Back at Russell Westbrook, Zeidman works five days a week and sells an average of 15 vehicles a month. He says it's the small things, such as customers returning to the dealership after 20 years and remembering him, that "make the car business worthwhile."

"It's not only the money. Of course, the money is good, too. You have to make a living. But I get just the enjoyment of coming to work talking to people," said Zeidman. "It's just the way I am. It's just the way I live."