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Message |
J.Ryan (Exoticdealercom)
New member
Username: Exoticdealercom
Post Number: 10
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, June 16, 2002 - 7:31 am: | |
Oops! I'm a little behind. Have you read anymore about these dealers here recently, or the progress of these facilities? |
William Huber (Solipsist)
Member
Username: Solipsist
Post Number: 282
Registered: 9-2001
| | Posted on Sunday, June 16, 2002 - 6:43 am: | |
I posted this back in April
http://server.ferrarichat.com/~ferrari/ferrarichat.com/discus/messages/6532/27948.html?1019491126 |
J.Ryan (Exoticdealercom)
New member
Username: Exoticdealercom
Post Number: 9
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, June 15, 2002 - 10:30 pm: | |
Ferrari and Lamborghini to butt heads with new D-FW dealerships
PLANO -- Preparing to renew a rivalry that's been dormant for six years, Italian exotic-carmakers Lamborghini and Ferrari both are racing to complete glitzy new factory-authorized dealerships in the Metroplex.
Ferrari of Dallas plans to move its operations from a leased, 12,000-square-foot facility in Richardson to a $3.7 million building about four times that size in Plano.
Plans call for the 3.6-acre dealership to open by September near the Dallas North Tollway and Plano Parkway.
Not to be outdone, MotorCars International says it intends to move its Lamborghini new-car dealership from Springfield, Mo., to somewhere in Dallas-Fort Worth by June.
Missouri owners Bob Cann and John Youngblood, who've teamed up with local used-car dealer Gary Seale, are looking to purchase a 5-acre tract -- possibly in Southlake or Grapevine, said Stephen Burks, director of marketing for MotorCars International.
A deal for the land is expected to close in about two weeks, he said.
The new dealership, to be called Lamborghini Dallas, will be about 20,000 square feet. In addition to new Lamborghinis, the dealership will sell used Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Porsches, BMWs and Mercedes.
Ferraris, which cost from $144,000 to $232,000, and Lamborghinis, which sell for $273,000, are key products in the exotic-car portion of the new automobile market, said Drew Campbell, president of the New Car Dealers Association of Greater Dallas.
"Their customers are people who are affluent car collectors who absolutely have a passion for automobiles," Campbell said. "It's something of an exclusive crowd -- a rarefied air that buys cars because they enjoy them.
"They're the art collectors of the automobile world."
Unique dealership
The Ferrari store, which officially broke ground March 1, will take about seven months to complete, said Jason Lillard, vice president of Fort Worth-based Ridgemont Commercial Construction, which began designing the dealership about five months ago.
Ridgemont has been working on the Ferrari project with San Francisco architecture firm Gensler, which has worked for years with manufacturers on dealership prototypes countrywide.
This Ferrari operation, however, will not look like any other Ferrari dealership, said Rick Ferrara, who's heading up the design project from the Dallas office.
The two-story, 52,000-square-foot dealership will display all of its cars for sale indoors. The new dealership plans to get a shipment of about 40 new Ferraris a year, said Anthony Nevotti, general manager for Ferrari of Dallas.
According to Freeman Publishing of Dallas, which tracks new-car sales, Ferrari sold 29 new Ferraris to registered owners in Dallas in 2001.
Ferrari of Dallas is owned by Houston-based Carisi Inc., which also owns Ferrari of Houston. The main principal for Carisi is Guiseppe Risi, who is president of the U.S. Ferrari/Maserati Dealer Council and also owns Risi Competizione, a world-renowned Ferrari racing team.
MotorCars International chose to relocate to the Dallas area after 11 years of Lamborghini sales in Missouri because of the stronger business climate here, as well as the good transportation routes by air and rail, Burks said.
MotorCars International, which expects to get about 20 new Lamborghinis a year from the factory, has made some progress in the Texas market, its second-best state for sales in the country behind California.
Of the 25 cars it sold to Texas residents in 2001, five were Lamborghinis. The company has sold 140 cars to Texas clients in the last five years.
Seale, who has sold luxury high-line used cars in the Metroplex for the past 15 years under the name Seale Motorsports, will be the general manager for Lamborghini Dallas.
This is the first time in more than five years that a factory-authorized Lamborghini dealership will operate in the Metroplex, said Campbell of the dealers association.
Midpark Chrysler was the last authorized new-car Lamborghini dealer in the Metroplex, selling the vehicles in Dallas until 1996.
According to Campbell, the fact that Lamborghini and Ferrari are starting to spend money on new facilities shows the strength of the new-car market in the Metroplex.
"If you're going to sell an exotic car," Campbell said, "there isn't a more superior market than right here in Dallas."
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J.Ryan (Exoticdealercom)
New member
Username: Exoticdealercom
Post Number: 8
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, June 15, 2002 - 7:54 pm: | |
If you have a moment check this out. It's an article in the Dallas Business Journal about Ferrari and Lamborghini's new multi-million dollar facilities in Southlake and Plano, pretty interesting.
http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2002/03/11/story3.html |
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