 |
KEN FULLERTON |
Ken Fullerton, salesman prized sports cars
Fond of formal attire and passionate for performance cars, Ken Fullerton was a rare breed of car salesman, his family and friends said.
“He was just an English gentleman,’’ said Dana Freeman, a longtime employee of Mr. Fullerton. “He just had a way with customers that was honest.’’
Mr. Fullerton, a race car driver and former owner of a German sports car dealership in Lexington, died July 16 under hospice care on Cape Cod from complications of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. He was 79.
Born on the Australian island of Tasmania, Mr. Fullerton spent the first few years of his life near Melbourne before moving with his family to London after the start of World War II.
In England, Mr. Fullerton was expected to attend law school as his father had done, but “that just wasn’t going to happen,’’ said his daughter Victoria, of Hanover, N.H. From a young age, he was fascinated by automobiles, attracted to the freedom and rebellion that a sports car represented, she said.
A love of automobiles ran in his blood. His mother was one of the first women to earn a driver’s license in the Australian state of Victoria, according to his family.
“He was a little more casual,’’ not formal enough for a law career,’’ Victoria said. “He just wanted to drive.’’
He served in the English army as a Grenadier Guard before graduating from the Battersea Polytechnic Institute in London with a certificate in hospitality administration, his family said. He worked at hotels in Monaco and France before immigrating with his wife, Jeannette, to Massachusetts in 1958.
The two met at a party in London and married in 1952.
He was a salesman for Auto Engineering, a BMW and Mercedes car distributor in Lexington, for several years before he purchased the dealership.
Mr. Fullerton was enthusiastic, cheerful, and never smug about his vast knowledge of automobiles, said Fred Hilton, a lawyer from Duxbury who helped Mr. Fullerton buy the dealership.
“There are a lot of sports car buffs who like to talk about cars. He could always outtalk them,’’ Hilton said. “He was a delightful guy, and people responded to that.’’
To employees, Mr. Fullerton seemed a kid in a candy store, said Freeman, who worked at Auto Engineering for a little more than three decades. He concentrated on the sales department, and let others run their departments the way they saw fit, Freeman said.
“It was almost like a family,’’ said Freeman. “Practically no one ever left because it was a great place to work. He had a lot of trust for us.’’
Mr. Fullerton also raced performance cars, driving a
His passion for cars had no end, his daughter Victoria said. Mr. Fullerton would take his daughters out for ice cream on Sundays in one of his sports cars; years earlier, he fashioned his honeymoon into a six-week road trip in an antique car across Europe.
Besides automobiles, Mr. Fullerton had a flair for drawing, helping design his three houses in Sudbury, Quissett Harbor (in Falmouth), and the Bahamas.
He retained an appreciation for wild, unmanicured nature, as it was in his native Australia, and landscaped the homes in that fashion, his daughter said.
In addition to his daughter and wife, Mr. Fullerton leaves another daughter, Honor Fullerton-Stone of Menlo Park, Calif.; and four grandchildren.
A memorial service is planned in November on Cape Cod.
L. Finch can be reached at lfinch@globe.com. 
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
