George Ballas, a Toledo philanthropist and civic leader who turned a struggling car dealership 30 years ago into a household name in northwest Ohio, died yesterday in his home in Springfield Township. He was 74.

The son of Greek immigrants who became one of the most successful Buick dealers in the country, Mr. Ballas suffered an aortic aneurysm - a burst artery - during the early morning, family members said. He was taken to Flower Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.

An indefatigable civic figure who was sought by politicians and corporate leaders for advice and support, Mr. Ballas was emblematic of the self-made businessman who rose from humble, working-class beginnings.

“He never stopped caring about people,” said longtime friend Sam Botek, Jr. “The legacy he left in this town - the charities he supported and the people he helped - will not be forgotten.”

Mr. Ballas was stricken when he went to bed after he and his wife, Marianne, had hosted a Christmas gathering at their home.

His wife said she tried to revive her husband, whose heart still was beating faintly when he was rushed to the hospital.

“He never gave up,” said Mrs. Ballas, who was married to him nearly six years. “He was the most determined man I've ever known.”

Arriving in Toledo 32 years ago, he started his career as a car dealer but emerged in later years as a civic player and booster who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charities, the arts, and cultural institutions.

He served on the board of St. John's Jesuit High School for nine years and was a past board member of the Salvation Army.

For the last four years, he was a director of the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, and more recently, was on the board of the lead agency for job creation: the Regional Growth Partnership.

“The Toledo business community will feel his absence,” said John Robinson Block, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Blade.

Known for wearing tailored suits and silk shirts, he was described by friends and competitors as a tough businessman who could be fierce in negotiations, and who always seemed to emerge on top of deals.

After arriving in Toledo in 1970, he turned a poorly performing Buick dealership on Main Street in Sylvania into a viable enterprise that he moved two years later to the Central Avenue strip. By 1976, his enterprise was considered one of the top 30 Buick dealerships in the country, according to General Motors, the parent company of the car division.

“His work ethic was legendary,” said Mr. Block, a close friend. “He was a great, great salesman. He would have been literally in the pantheon, or the hall of fame of salesmen, if there were such a place.”

After Mr. Ballas arrived in Toledo, his energy and vigor had an immediate impact on the auto dealership world. He was a very aggressive competitor who used public relations and advertising to successfully push his product and change the local industry.

“It really was a different ballgame,” Mr. Block said. “He offered a challenge to all the other dealers in town.”

Though he became the president of George Ballas Buick GMC, with a national leasing corporation doing business in 48 states, he never strayed far from the sales floor where he kept direct tabs on customers, his employees said. In 32 years, he refused to keep an unlisted number.

“He wanted customers to know they could call him,” said his younger brother, Gus Ballas, 72, who operates the Ballas-owned Budget rental car franchise. “He loved people, and I know that's a clich , but it's true. He truly loved people and reached out to them in a way you don't see today.”

Born in Muskegon, Mich., a blue-collar port town on Lake Michigan, he was raised in a family of five siblings in economic conditions that helped shape his outlook for the rest of his life, he later said.

His parents, Peter and Irene, ran a candy and sandwich shop, where young George worked with his sister and three brothers. Though the family was not poor, they struggled at times.

“Some people start from scratch. I started with less than scratch,” recalled Mr. Ballas in a 1994 interview.

“I started in business when I was 6, selling magazines on the streets of downtown Muskegon,” he said.

“When I was 6, I wasn't very big, and the delivery bags were too heavy for me to lift. I had to sell the hell out of them or I couldn't lift the bags to go home.”

After graduating from Muskegon High School in 1947, he took business classes before enrolling in the University of Michigan as a pre-med student, said his brother, Gus.

But he struggled to pay his tuition, partly because he married and was raising a family, his brother said.

“Money became an issue and he had to drop out,” he said.

He returned to Muskegon, where he began selling cars in a career that would span the next four decades.

He soon learned there was a pent-up demand for cars in post-World War II America.

“He tapped into that market, and no one knew people better. George was warm and compassionate and people trusted him,” recalled Bob Fowler, a retired general manager at George Ballas Buick. “You don't teach that. You're born with it.”

He moved to Grand Rapids, Mich., where he became a top salesman and part owner at Imperial Motors, a Chrysler-Plymouth-DeSoto dealer.

On Nov. 11, 1970, he bought the old Carroll Motor Sales dealership in Sylvania selling Buicks.

“There were eight people” on the payroll, recalled Mr. Fowler.

Buick considered the Toledo area its hardest-hit market in the country, with sales plunging, Mr. Fowler said. “Buick gave George two years to pull it out,” he recalled, “or he was done.”

Determined to make Toledo his venue, Mr. Ballas borrowed money to launch an aggressive media campaign, including very heavy advertising schedules in The Blade supplemented by radio and television.

As part of his marketing blitz, Mr. Ballas launched a memorable campaign calling himself “Mr. Buick” - the man who “reinvents the auto dealership.”

Within two years, he broke ground on the Central Avenue strip, asking the Rev. Chris Hadgigeorge of the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral to bless the ground. “He was more religious than a lot of people realize,” said Father Hadgigeorge, now pastor emeritus.

Over the next 30 years, Mr. Ballas would become one of the Toledo area's most successful car dealers, according to industry reports.

“He worked day and night,” said his wife, Marianne, who started working for him in the early 1970s. “He never lost his love for selling.”

In 1976, while domestic car sales were dropping by 2.7 percent, his sales were increasing by 9 percent.

Ironically, he was awarded a trip to Japan that year by Buick - the same country whose auto companies were challenging U.S. auto makers for the largest gains.

He went on to purchase two Buick-GMC-Pontiac dealerships in Kansas City, Kan., for $9 million in 1986 and to expand his leasing company to include office equipment, computers, and furniture. He also started a Toyota dealership in Maumee, and became part-owner of a Lincoln Mercury outlet.

During his largest expansion years, his domestic life began to unravel with a divorce from his wife, Ann, after they raised three children.

He began to put more time into civic duties and fund-raising that would distinguish him during his later years.

“He raised money for St. John's, the Toledo Opera, the symphony - you name it,” Mr. Botek said.

In 1983, he suffered an aortic aneurysm, a bursting of the main arterial wall that leads from the heart that required emergency surgery. More surgery was done in 1991.

“It was a [degenerative] condition that he had to deal with the rest of his life,” said Dr. Panos Doukides, a friend and member of his church.

In April, 2000, he slipped in the concourse of his Toledo dealership, a fall that left his lower body partially paralyzed.

The accident led doctors to believe he would never walk again, his wife said.

“But he was determined to prove them wrong,” she said.

Through medication and exhaustive rehabilitation, he began to feel his nerve endings again and by this year, was walking with a cane.

“He told me that he was going to walk,” said Father Hadgigeorge. “He said, `I'm going to walk into their office,' and he did. But that was George. That was his personality. He was a fighter.”

He is survived by his wife, Marianne; son, Dr. Peter Ballas II, and daughters, Matina Nimphie, and Stefani de Laville, all of Delray Beach, Fla.; two stepsons, Tim and Jeffrey Robinson of Toledo; brothers, Gus Ballas of Toledo and Hercules Ballas of Las Vegas, and a sister, Cleo Coulacos of Bloomfield Hills, Mich.

Visitation will be tomorrow from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday, 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., at the Fretti Funeral Home, 5045 West Sylvania Ave., with a Trisagion prayer service at 7 p.m. Sunday at the funeral home.

Funeral services will be at 11 a.m. Monday at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral, with entombment to follow at Ottawa Hills Memorial Park.

First Published December 27, 2002, 11:52 a.m.