Longtime Hawaii auto dealer Mike McKenna, 81, has sold McKenna’s Windward Ford after nearly five decades in the industry.

The dealership was sold for undisclosed terms to California auto dealer Jay Gill, who has five dealerships selling vehicles from 11 different manufacturers, according to Aiyaz Dean, the dealership’s new general manager and a 28-year veteran of the Hawaii automotive industry.

Gill first landed on Hawaii shores 40 years ago on his way to California as he emigrated from his native India, Dean said.

Gill was back in Hawaii to finalize the deal "40 years to the day" after first arriving in the islands, Dean said.

In addition to his auto dealerships, Gill has interests in farming and other businesses, but the former McKenna dealership is his first business in the islands.

Gill Island Motors Inc. was formed for the transaction, and the dealership will do business as Windward Ford of Hawaii, according to state business registration records.

Most of the dealership’s previous employees were retained, and the new management comprises Dean, General Sales Manager Angel Santiago, Howard Villa and Nick Westerville.

Dean said customers can expect the same warm welcome when they stop into the dealership that McKenna’s crew provided for so many years.

As its first gesture to the community, the dealership will offer free safety checks to any active-duty service member with a valid military ID, Dean said.

He would not have sold his dealership to just anybody, said McKenna’s longtime Controller Rose Rufo, who will remain in her position. "He loves his employees"and was in the dealership Thursday signing his final payroll for them. "It was bittersweet," she said.

In his younger days, McKenna sold mangoes on Maui before his time in California, said Dave Rolf, longtime friend and executive director of the Hawaii Automobile Dealers Association.

"Mike McKenna is an icon" of the Hawaii automotive industry, he said.

McKenna has been Dealer of the Year at the state level and also was awarded Dealer of the Year at the national level by the American International Automobile Dealers Association.

He owned many car dealerships over the years, including some in California now operated by his son Daniel, and his daughter Michael has long been a fixture at the Kailua dealership.

Over the years, his dogs Hana and Hana-boy also have figured prominently at the dealership and in its advertising.

"He was so prominent. He really was the one who started the idea of giving away a car" during Project Graduation overnight parties for Hawaii high schools, as well as initiating a year’s free use of a new car for the Hawaii Teacher of the Year, Rolf said.

McKenna’s Windward Ford over the years give $1 million to Hawaii schools in its "Spirit of Giving" campaign in which $100 from every car sold was donated to the school of the buyer’s choice, Rolf said. "He’s the quintessential active dealer in the community."

Under McKenna’s reign he received a President’s Award from Ford Motor Co. and as such was rewarded with a small allocation of the 2005 GT, described in a 2004 Honolulu Star-Bulletin story as the "pulse-quickening, eye-bugging, way-cool, 5.4-liter, V8, 500-horsepower muscle car that is the centerpiece of the automaker’s centennial celebration."

The GT was named "Pace Car for an entire company" during a 60-second commercial titled "The One" that aired just before the 2004 Super Bowl.

McKenna said at the time nobody at the dealership would drive any of those cars very far, preferring to leave the mileage-adding privilege to the eventual buyers, whose names McKenna never revealed.