By DEB GRUVER

Staff writer

Selling cars is a lot different than being a police chief, but Clinton Jeffrey says there’s one important overlapping skill: the ability to talk to people.

Marion’s police chief for four years and a police officer for about 10 years before that, Jeffrey began working Jan. 2 at Midway Motors in Hillsboro after resigning from his city job in December.

Jeffrey is known for his love of cars and trucks. He’s owned about 20 in his life, most of them bought at the dealership where he now works.

“If you can’t beat them, join them,” he said, laughing. “The longest I ever had one was three years, I think.”

His friends have joked about how he’ll probably trade vehicles even more often now that he’s working at a dealership.

“I’m going to try to keep the ones I have for a while,” he said.

Those are a white 2007 GMC 2500 truck and a black 2006 Dodge Magnum SRT8 station wagon. The latter was made the year he graduated from high school. About 4,500 were manufactured. His was in an episode of “Car Issues” on the MotorTrend channel. His wife drives an SUV.

Jeffrey tends to like older vehicles, though his favorite sale so far was a new Chevy Trailblazer to his sister.

“I sold her her first new car, and she was super happy, which made me super happy,” he said.

Although he’s a new salesman at Midway, he mowed the grass there for six summers, and he washed cars there on his days off.

“Once I was looking for a job, I contacted them, came over and they hired me,” he said. “It worked out perfectly. It might not be a natural progression, but a lot of times cops become car salesmen because knowing how to talk to people is important.”

One big change is this: Jeffrey used to guard his personal cell phone number.

“I hid my personal number for 14 years from the world,” he said. “Now I give it to everyone.”