County Again Among Leaders in Car Sales : Top 500: Two dealerships--House of Imports and Slemons Imports--are ranked among the top 10.
Orange County loves the automobile. If you are not convinced by the clogged freeways, all you have to do is look at the listing of the nation’s top auto dealerships.
Auto Age, one of the industry’s top trade magazines, this week reported that 15 of the nation’s top car dealerships--ranked by annual sales--are located in Orange County. That compares with 11 local dealerships in the 1989 listing of the top 500 dealerships.
Two of the Orange County dealerships--House of Imports in Buena Park and Jim Slemons Imports of Newport Beach, both Mercedes-Benz sellers--made the top 10.
But by now, the crew at House of Imports must be getting pretty blase about such honors. This is the fourth time in as many years that the Buena Park Mercedes-Benz dealership has been ranked as the top-grossing auto dealer in Orange County, and one of the tops in the United States.
And while the county retained its standing as a major import market, with the top five dealerships all foreign franchises, domestic brands captured eight of the 15 slots for a 53% share of the local rankings. Last year, domestics accounted for five of the 11 local top 500 finishers.
Conspicuously absent from the list of the county’s top dealers were domestic luxury brands--not a single Chrysler, Cadillac or Lincoln-Mercury dealer from Orange County made the list.
But six of the county’s 13 Ford dealers were on it, far outpacing Chevrolet, which had only two Orange County franchises with enough annual sales--the cutoff was $34 million--to make the grade.
The rankings--which are based on numbers supplied by the dealers themselves and thus may not include every major operation--show that dealers in Orange and Los Angeles counties continued to lead the nation in both sales and dollar volume in 1989.
That, several auto-retailing consultants said, provides at least a small bit of comfort to the local industry at a time when an estimated 50% of all car dealers nationwide are losing money amid a major national sales slump.
Jim Upp, executive director of the Orange County Motor Car Dealers Assn., said the local dealers’ strong showing underscores both the area’s love affair with cars and the strength of the retail automobile business in the county.
The 11 local dealerships that were on the list both this year and last reported selling a total of 26,590 new cars for 1989, down 2.2%, or 593 vehicles, from 1988 sales of 27,183 new cars. But gross new car sales revenue for those dealers was up 6.3% to $512.5 million from $482.1 million in 1988, reflecting the hefty hike in most new car price tags last year.
Price increases offset the drop in new and used car sales and enabled the repeaters to post an overall sales gain of 2% to $734.1 million for 1989 from $719.7 million in 1988.
The 15 Orange County dealerships this year account for 3% of the Auto Age 500 and reported combined sales of $864.2 million--or almost 3.5% of the 500 dealers’ total retail sales of $26 billion. That national total was almost unchanged from $25.9 billion last year.
More significantly, the average Orange County dealer’s annual gross of $57.6 million was 11% higher than the national average of $51.9 million.
“I’ve always felt this is one of the strongest automotive markets in the U.S.,” Upp remarked. “Dealers here tend to have better facilities, and more dealers own their own facilities than in other places, so they are more committed.”
The Auto Age rankings are based on the total of new car sales, used car sales, parts and service and body shop revenue, and income from the dealers’ finance and insurance departments.
To earn its top position among local dealerships, House of Imports grossed $111.1 million last year--which also earned it a ranking as the nation’s sixth largest auto dealer and largest Mercedes-Benz dealer.
The Buena Park dealership sold 1,539 new Mercedes-Benzes for a total of $70.8 million and 880 used cars--mainly “pre-owned” Mercedes--for gross revenue of $25 million. It also reported $11.7 million in parts and service department sales; $1.8 million from its body shop, and $1.7 million from finance and insurance products.
The county’s No. 2 dealer, for the fourth year, was Jim Slemons Imports. The Newport Beach Mercedes dealership finished ninth in the nation--down from eighth last year--with $103.4 million in gross sales.
Ironically, in view of Newport Beach’s reputation as a pocket of great wealth, the average new car at House of Imports in Buena Park sold for $46,000 last year, compared with an average of $44,000 at Slemons Imports.
The reason, said House of Imports spokesman Doug Culver, isn’t that there is more money in North Orange County. Mercedes-Benz, he said, keeps dealers on a very tight allotment based on prior sales, and House of Imports, which has been one of the nation’s top Mercedes dealerships for years, gets a larger allocation of the most expensive, top-of-the-line models than does Slemons.
The top-ranked domestic dealership in the county was Connell Chevrolet in Costa Mesa, which finished in sixth place in the county rankings and 120th in the U.S. with total sales of $58.4 million.
In sixth place, and leading a parade of Ford dealers who profited from Ford’s fast-selling truck line and its hit Taurus and Escort passenger cars, was Campbell Ford in Garden Grove, with $57.2 million in sales.
Campbell placed 10th in the county last year with $44.3 million in sales. The dealer jumped from 285th in national rankings last year to 136th place this year.
Irvine-based Campbell Automotive Group bought the dealership in 1986 and in mid-1987 moved into its new facility alongside the Garden Grove Freeway. “Since then, with the increased exposure, sales have jumped,” said John Campbell III, president of Campbell Automotive, which has eight other franchises.
TOP CAR DEALERS IN ORANGE COUNTY
Dollar figures in millions
1989 1988 Dealership Rank Rank House of Imports Mercedes 6 6 Jim Slemons Imports Mercedes 9 8 Toyota of Orange 49 32 Elmore Toyota 59 96 Toyota of Garden Grove 100 105 Connell Chevrolet 120 146 Campbell Ford 136 285 Theodore Robins Ford 152 -- Sunset Ford 163 -- Jim Click Ford 172 189 Crevier BMW 173 174 Villa Ford 178 113 Ted Jones Ford 290 -- Guaranty Chevrolet 348 495 Tustin Acura 448 --
Dealership Owner/CEO City House of Imports Mercedes M.B. O’Donoghue Buena Park Jim Slemons Imports Mercedes Jim Slemons Newport Beach Toyota of Orange David W. Wilson Orange Elmore Toyota Lester Elmore Westminster Toyota of Garden Grove Norris J. Bishton Garden Grove Connell Chevrolet Pat Connell Costa Mesa Campbell Ford John B.T. Campbell III Garden Grove Theodore Robins Ford Theodore Robins, Jr. Costa Mesa Sunset Ford Robert & Michael Heusser Westminster Jim Click Ford Click & Tuttle Irvine Crevier BMW Robert Crevier Santa Ana Villa Ford Baldwin & West Orange Ted Jones Ford Fletcher Jones Buena Park Guaranty Chevrolet Bob Long Santa Ana Tustin Acura Shau-Wai Lam Tustin
Dealership New New Used Cars Car Used Car * F&I; Sold Revenue Cars Revenue Income House of Imports Mercedes 1,539 $70.8 880 $25.0 $1.7 Jim Slemons Imports Mercedes 1,350 59.7 400 12.2 1.1 Toyota of Orange 3,860 52.8 1,521 11.9 2.9 Elmore Toyota 4,083 53.4 1,586 10.9 1.8 Toyota of Garden Grove 2,813 36.6 1,691 12.5 1.1 Connell Chevrolet 2,100 39.8 1,231 8.8 0.4 Campbell Ford 3,032 43.0 638 4.9 1.4 Theodore Robins Ford 2,598 36.6 1,025 9.0 1.1 Sunset Ford 2,490 36.5 539 4.8 4.0 Jim Click Ford 2,262 35.2 668 7.0 1.0 Crevier BMW 1,004 35.9 354 8.1 0.3 Villa Ford 3,017 41.1 880 7.8 0.6 Ted Jones Ford 2,633 36.4 335 2.6 1.7 Guaranty Chevrolet 1,530 24.5 372 3.5 0.9 Tustin Acura 1,575 30.8 158 1.8 0.6
Dealership Parts & Body Service Shop Revenue Revenue Total House of Imports Mercedes $11.8 $1.8 $111.1 Jim Slemons Imports Mercedes 25.5 5.0 103.4 Toyota of Orange 8.4 0 76.0 Elmore Toyota 6.1 0 72.1 Toyota of Garden Grove 8.0 2.5 60.6 Connell Chevrolet 9.4 0 58.4 Campbell Ford 5.8 2.1 57.2 Theodore Robins Ford 7.0 0.8 54.5 Sunset Ford 6.8 0.7 52.9 Jim Click Ford 8.6 0 51.9 Crevier BMW 7.5 0 51.8 Villa Ford 1.6 0.3 51.4 Ted Jones Ford 3.2 0.4 44.2 Guaranty Chevrolet 10.3 1.4 40.5 Tustin Acura 3.2 0 36.5
* Finance & Insurance Income S ource: Auto Age
