After a public feud over customer-data access led to severed ties, AutoNation and TrueCar made amends. Now, the dealership group is giving Scott Painter, who was at TrueCar's helm throughout the quarrel, a second chance.
AutoNation, the nation's largest dealership group, last week announced a partnership with Fair, a used-vehicle leasing subscription service. Painter is Fair's CEO.
"The process has begun to rebuild a relationship between AutoNation and Scott," Marc Cannon, AutoNation's chief marketing officer, told Automotive News. But working with the Fair model and with Georg Bauer, chairman of Fair and former CEO of Mercedes-Benz Credit Corp., was the draw, he said. AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson worked closely with Bauer when Jackson led Mercedes-Benz USA in the late '90s.