Webb Automotive Acquires 3 Irvine Car Agencies : Dealerships: Changes are planned at the Nissan, Toyota and Mitsubishi facilities at Irvine Auto Center, according to Lew Webb, whose firm acquired the properties for $17 million.

Webb Automotive Group said Wednesday that is has completed a $17-million acquisition of three import auto facilities in Irvine and is planning several major changes at the Orange County dealerships.

Lew Webb, owner and founder of Webb Automotive, said he has acquired three Irvine Auto Center properties--Irvine Nissan, Irvine Toyota and Irvine Mitsubishi--from Cerrito Management Group of Los Gatos in Northern California. The three properties accounted for $71 million in gross sales for Cerrito last year, according to Auto Age magazine.

Of the eight new car facilities the company now owns, five are in Orange County. Webb is one of the new breed of super dealers--owners of multiple dealerships--who are attempting to build car retailing networks that rely on customers’ loyalty to a dealer rather than to a brand of car.

In addition to acquiring the land and buildings, Webb took over operation of the Toyota and Nissan dealer franchises. But he closed down the Mitsubishi dealership and said he currently is seeking a domestic car franchise for the property.

“It is not a reflection of anything bad about Mitsubishi,” he said. “It’s just that I felt that having three foreign car dealerships in the same center was too much.”

Webb also believes that owning two Toyota dealerships within a 10-mile radius is too many. He said he intends late next month to consolidate Lew Webb/Son Toyota in Mission Viejo with the newly acquired Irvine Toyota--which will be renamed Lew Webb’s Irvine Toyota.

The Mission Viejo lot will become a Lexus dealership, the first in South Orange County to sell Toyota’s new luxury line. Webb also owns Toyota of Buena Park and plans no changes to that property.

Webb said the parts and service departments at the Irvine Nissan and Toyota dealerships have reopened after being closed for several days for inventory.

Sales operations at the two dealerships, however, will remain closed for two weeks for refurbishing. Webb said his company is spending about $1 million to re-roof the buildings, repair the parking lots and paint and replace carpeting in the showrooms and sales offices.

The Irvine dealerships were put up for sale almost three years ago at an asking price of about $20 million as Cerrito Management began searching for funds to keep its Northern California operations afloat. Before the sale, Cerrito had up to a dozen dealerships.

All but the Irvine dealerships, however, were in and around Cerrito’s home base in the Silicon Valley. Industry analysts said Cerrito launched a major expansion in Northern California just as the computer and aerospace industry crunches cut deeply into the area’s economy.

Webb said he expects the addition of the new dealerships to his auto retailing group to propel it into the top rank of car dealers nationally next year, with combined sales of $500 million.

That would rank the Webb group among the top 25 new car dealers in the nation.