At a Midwest auto dealership, trying to make a recovery happen WASHINGTON, MO. - The dealership's floor is polished and gleaming. The cars are buffed and waxed. Their windshields are decorated with the latest markdown prices, a series of exclamation points in neon pink and green. Here, for a limited time only, is yet another "Huge Savings Event!" during "Truck Month!" with "0% Interest!" and "No Money Down!" Doug Kleekamp, 50, walks outside at 8 a.m. to greet the first customer of the day. He is a career salesman raising five kids on commission, and he hasn't sold a car for almost a week. But everything he's heard about the economy says this is the moment when a turnaround will finally begin, so he smooths the wrinkles from his Modern Auto shirt, smiles at the customer and gestures toward the cloudless sky. "You've come on the perfect day," he says, extending his hand. It's the perfect time to buy a car. Here in rural Missouri, and in so many other places across the country, it is far too passive to say, simply, that the economy is improving. At Modern Auto, six salesmen work 12-hour days and try every strategy they can imagine to make it improve. In an effort to outlast the recession, the family-owned dealership hired a consultant, produced a new commercial and started holding motivational meetings for its sales staff, where each week a manager recites a version of the same question: Ask yourselves: What does it take during these times to sell a car? In Washington, D.C., it has taken auto bailouts, record-low interest rates and manufacturing incentives - all of which helped the auto industry achieve its best sales last month since 2008. Politicians who gambled on the industry now track strong sales numbers to gauge the strength of the economy. Is this the year when recovering becomes recovered? Is consumer confidence finally on the rise? In Washington, Mo., each transaction is its own verdict, and each potential sale is another milestone toward recovery - not just for the economy at large but for the six salesmen working the floor. There's Jeff, who was laid off from another job before coming to Modern Auto and who waits for customers on a warped bench near the parking lot because it is "20 steps closer to a sale." There's Keith, who stores ramen noodles in his desk drawer for lunch, and Matt, in a tie and baseball cap, who invites customers to karaoke on Tuesday nights and tries to bond with them by sharing family photos in a binder labeled: "I am a Human, not just a car salesman." And then there's Doug Klee­kamp, a fixture at the corner desk on the showroom floor, always in a Modern Auto button-down, earning the same in his 26th year at the dealership as he did in his 15th. He hates fishing for walk-in business in the parking lot - "I don't want to look desperate, even if I am," he says - so instead he sifts through old contacts and tries to schedule sales appointments. An elderly man comes to take three test-drives, even though he's not ready to buy. A middle-aged woman confides for 30 minutes about her rocky marriage and then says she should consult her husband before shopping for a car.