Red McCombs describes himself as "a wheeler-dealer."
"There has never been a deal he didn't want to buy," said his grandson, Joe Shields, "and then, for the right price, there hasn't been a deal he isn't willing to sell."
Shields, vice president of McCombs' namesake dealership group, Red McCombs Automotive in San Antonio, said his grandfather counts upward of 400 businesses that he has owned during his career. Some succeeded. Others did not. But McCombs, his grandson said, was skilled at recognizing a bad bet and exiting quickly.