Even though he's been selling automobiles for nearly 60 years, Bob Ochsner still stops in midsentence at the sight of a pretty car.

"Isn't that a beautiful color?" Ochsner, 85, said admiringly of a sparkling, burnt-red vehicle waiting at a traffic signal on Fauntleroy Way in front of his business, Bob Ochsner Cars. He didn't break his gaze or continue speaking until the light turned and the car had moved on.

Ochsner (pronounced "Oh-shner") has been selling cars for 39 years at a small lot between Wardrobe Cleaners and the West Seattle Montessori School. Some people wrongly assume Bob Ochsner Cars is part of nearby and mammoth Huling Bros. and its many dealerships.

The Chrysler 300 is Ochsner's current favorite car. What's his favorite car of all time?

"The last one I just sold," he replied.

Ochsner recently sold his car lot, located at 4518 Fauntleroy Way S.W., to a man who wishes to remain anonymous, but who wants to keep the Ochsner name. The new owner also wants Bob to remain on the job through the end of this year.

During a recent visit to the car lot, Ochsner wore checkered pants and a light-blue long-sleeve V-neck sweater over his shirt. The last loop of his necktie was left untucked so it covered the knot as it hung. On his head was a blue baseball cap with gold braid on the brim from the South Seattle Car Auction.

Ochsner said he started selling cars the day he went to buy one.

It was shortly after World War II and Ochsner was still in the U.S. Navy, a chief boatswain's mate assigned to duty in Seattle. Ochsner went to shop for a car at I. L. Boling's car lot downtown because the owner was a friend of his dad's. Art Ochsner sold stocks and bonds, and knew a lot of business people.

The day young Ochsner went to Boling's car lot to have a look around, he wore his Navy uniform but left the jacket behind. Ochsner looked like a civilian so other customers took him for a salesman and started asking him questions.

"All the cars had a stick shift in those days," Ochsner said. Before World War II, many new cars cost less than $500 and all were made in America, he said.

Wartime prices had been set by the federal government and were still in effect. Ochsner tracked down Boling three times to get answers to customers' questions. Before an hour was up, he'd sold three cars.

"Who in the hell are you?" Boling finally asked.

Ochsner has been selling cars ever since.

"I wanted to be a salesman because my dad was a salesman," Ochsner said. "My whole life I wanted to be a salesman."

Before he set up a car lot in West Seattle almost four decades ago, Ochsner owned and operated two other car lots simultaneously - one downtown and another on Rainier Avenue. The sign outside his car lot on Fauntleroy Way today is the same one he had at his lot on Rainier Avenue.

The new owner wants to replace the sign with a new "Bob Ochsner Cars" sign. The existing sign originally cost $300, Ochsner said. To replace it with a neon sign of the same size and layout will run $5,300.

Inside the car lot office, plaques and awards to Ochsner hang on the wall for having served as president of the Rotary Club of West Seattle and the Kiwanis Club of Magnolia, where he lives. He was a board member on Big Brothers of King County and is an honorary life member of the Elks.

Another award from the National Independent Automobile Dealers Association named Ochsner the No. 1 dealer west of the Mississippi River one year. He was Washington state president in 1975 and 1976.

There are also two J-shape pieces of cloth on the wall, athletic letters Ochsner won at Jefferson Elementary School. The school stood where Jefferson Square is today.

A windshield sign from the 1940s on the wall states, "Drive me, you'll buy."

Every week, Ochsner's friend Bob Hancock comes to the office to play pinochle with him for 50 cents a game. They've been playing weekly for about 30 years.

Ochsner grew up on 46th Avenue near Southwest Brandon Street in a house for which his father paid $2,051, he recalled. He attended Jefferson Elementary School and Madison Middle School.

Ochsner sold advertising for the West Seattle Herald while attending West Seattle High School. He graduated with the Class of 1939.

After high school he got a job at Boeing and became an assistant supervisor.

He also married Patricia Filer, who grew up a few years younger and about five blocks away in the Seaview neighborhood. The Ochsners have made their home in Magnolia for more than 50 years, where they raised three sons and three daughters, and now have 14 grandchildren.

Car sales are seasonal, according to Ochsner. Most cars are sold from spring to early summer. Then there's always a dropoff in car buyers from Thanksgiving to Easter. The exception happens right after the rare snowstorm, when a few panicky car buyers decide to go car shopping.

Ochsner's advice to people shopping for a car: "Don't overbuy and get yourself in hock," he said. "Be polite to everybody, but make damn sure you know who you're doing business with."

Tim St. Clair can be reached at 932-0300 or tstclair@robinsonnews.com