Posted at: 06/01/2009 7:19 PM
Updated at: 06/02/2009 7:44 AM
By: Stuart Dyson, Eyewitness News 4; Matthew Kappus, KOB.com

Despite adversity, dealership to give away car

Quality will again hold a drawing to award a student with perfect attendance a new car

An Albuquerque car dealer faced with shutting down half its new car business is sticking to its tradition of awarding a free car to a lucky high school student.

Quality Jeep Chrysler, where the motto is "Keep cool, stay in school," will reward a high school student with perfect attendance a new car in a drawing this summer. It's a tradition the dealership has done for the past three years.

But this year, Quality finds itself on Chrysler Corporation's shutdown list�along with three other New Mexico dealerships. The car maker revealed two weeks ago it wants to yank Quality's dealership as part of its debt-dodging bankruptcy strategy. It's a massive blow to the DiLorenzo family, who have owned Quality for 22 years.

Despite the hardship, Annette DiLorenzo said the family is committed to rewarding a hard-working student with a new car.

"It's something that the owners -- my family -- discussed at the beginning of the year when things were really looking real grim for the economy: Are we going to be able to do this? And if there was something we were going to do, we were going to keep this project," Annette DiLorenzo said.

In 2006, the first year of the giveaway, only 17 kids qualified. This year, it's 98. The DiLorenzos couldn't say no to that kind of success�even with the auto industry reeling.

The one difference this year is the giveaway car probably will be a General Motors product and not a Chrysler. The other part of quality's new car business is a Pontiac-Buick-GMC dealership.

Drawing for the car giveaway is June 12 at Lomas and Tennessee.