In 1931, on Chicago's North Side, as the bullet-riddled remnants of gangs fought for control of the illicit liquor trade, a small Hupmobile dealership on West Lawrence Avenue was rounding out its first year in the automobile business.

Today, 50 years later, the same family of Grossingers runs the dealership. Hupmobile sales ended, of course, about the same time that Prohibition dried up. With the switch from Hupmobile to Pontiac, the Grossinger family tied its fortunes to an automaker that would eventually see its members sell more Pontiacs than any other dealership in the Midwest.

As the 1981 model year rolled to its less than huge-volume close, Grossinger has named Mary Lou Jarvis as the first woman fleet manager in its 50-year history. Jarvis joined Grossinger's fleet staff about two years ago, while she was in the process of buying her fifth Pontiac from the dealership in the previous eight years.

"I was talking to the retail sales manager when Chuck Gordon happened by and overheard me say that I would be interested in working at a place as well-run as this," Jarvis recalls. "He offered me a job on the spot and I accepted it on the condition that it would have to be 'truly interesting,'" she says.

Since then, Jarvis has found that her professional background in customer relations has served her well in Grossinger's National Fleet Sales Division. During her fleet sales tenure, Jarvis has helped smooth the way for the success of Grossinger's Sight-Draft system, which is a payment-and-signature reporting technique the firm pioneered in handling nationwide drop-shipments.

Also, Jarvis has kept herself busy by attending trade shows and other gatherings of potential fleet clients. At such outings, she describes the Grossinger Pontiac saga from its earliest days right up to "what have we done for you lately."

And she oversees Grossinger's computerized system of handling and re­ porting fleet ordering and delivering data, which keeps her right in the thick of client contact.

Although the dealership is headed by Irwin Grossinger, a member of the founding family, Jarvis reports to Charles J. (Chuck) Gordon, vice president and director of the firm's National Fleet Sales Division.

The 50th year for Grossinger, probably much like its first, has not exactly been a bed of financial roses. In the past 18 months or so, Irwin Grossinger has committed more than $6 million in an ambitious expansion that currently sees the company operating a huge new dealership in Skokie, a northern suburb adjacent to Chicago and only a few minutes from O'Hare Airport. The firm continues to maintain the original facility on Lawrence Avenue in the city, which has itself undergone several expansions over the years.

These days, all new fleet and retail sales originate from the sprawling Skokie store, which gives the firm a centralized inventory and gives the client a more favorable sales tax levy than the city requires. The Chicago facility continues to be used as additional office and warehouse space for the expanding National Fleet Sales Division, as well as a warehouse and sales facility for used units.