Lithia unloads Toyota, Ford and Bentley-Lotus dealerships

Lithia Motors Inc. sold three dealerships in separate June transactions, including one it had purchased just this month. The other two were sold to a pair of the largest dealership groups in the country.

Lithia on Tuesday sold Priority Toyota Hampton in Virginia to Mills Automotive Group, Tom Dobry, Lithia's vice president of strategic operations, confirmed to Automotive News. The dealership was one of 14 franchised dealerships Lithia bought from Dennis Ellmer this month in a deal that included two other Toyota dealerships.

The Priority dealership was renamed Classic Toyota of Hampton, according to a LinkedIn post by Kelly Alston, Mills Automotive's variable operations director.

Mills Automotive, which made several acquisitions in 2022, also in May bought a Louisiana Ford store from Group 1 Automotive Inc.

Sale to #1 Cochran

Lithia on June 22 sold Ford of Monroeville in Pennsylvania, east of Pittsburgh, to #1 Cochran Automotive, according to #1 Cochran CEO Rob Cochran.

The dealership was renamed #1 Cochran Ford Monroeville. Lithia confirmed it had owned the dealership since 2018.

"Monroeville is our headquarters," Cochran told Automotive News. "It's our hub and where we originally grew. From that standpoint, it was really an easy, efficient acquisition. It's right down the street. Very little management complexity for us because we have a wealth of people in and around this area."

It marks the third Ford dealership in Cochran's portfolio. The group bought one Ford dealership last year.

The Ford of Monroeville deal came just one week after Cochran's most recent acquisition.

#1 Cochran on June 15 bought Boardman Nissan in Ohio, south of Youngstown, and just west of the Pennsylvania border, from dealer Matt Wickwire, Cochran said.

That dealership was renamed #1 Cochran Nissan Boardman. That deal marked the group's first acquisition since January when it entered Ohio with the purchase of two General Motors dealerships, also in Boardman.

#1 Cochran ranks No. 59 on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups based in the U.S., retailing 13,871 new vehicles in 2022.

Lithia said it sold Bentley of Denver-Lotus of Denver, previously housed in its Ferrari of Denver dealership in Highlands Ranch, Colo., to John Elway Dealerships on June 8.

Lithia acquired the exotic and ultraluxury dealership in December. Lithia plans to complete a full remodel of the Ferrari store consistent with the automaker's new image program, which is to be unveiled later this year, Dobry said in an email.

John Elway Dealerships — named for the former NFL star and longtime Denver Broncos quarterback who owns several dealerships with partners — moved the Bentley and Lotus brands to a building that was a used-vehicle store in nearby Lone Tree, Colo., according to Todd Maul, the group's managing partner. The dealership is next to its Cadillac store.

While John Elway Dealerships already had luxury dealerships from BMW and Porsche, in addition to Cadillac, the renamed Bentley Denver-Lotus Denver is the group's entry into the ultraluxury segment, Maul said.

"The way we see it, it complements our Cadillac brand in a way that is fairly rare to have," Maul told Automotive News. "Because it's not like people are coming in trying to decide between an XT5 and a Bentayga. And even for that matter, the Escalade is just a very different vehicle than the Bentayga."

Maul said the building recently had been refreshed but will be brought up to Bentley's corporate look. The group is planning how it wants to house Lotus and anticipates receiving its first vehicles in the fall.

The deal marked John Elway Dealerships' first franchised dealership acquisition since it bought a BMW dealership and a Mini store in 2020, Maul said. The group has been an active buyer of powersports dealerships in recent years.

John Elway Dealerships sold a Stellantis dealership and a majority stake in a Toyota store, both near Los Angeles, last year.

Elway got into dealership ownership years ago and sold stores in 1997 to Republic Industries Inc., which became AutoNation Inc.

Maul, a past chairman of the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, worked for Chesrown Group in the 1990s. He was with Chesrown when it sold to Republic in 1997. Maul stayed on with AutoNation and was that auto retailer's west region president until 2008.

Soon after he left AutoNation, Maul became partners with Elway and Mitch Pierce, another partner at John Elway Dealerships, at a Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram store in Greeley, Colo., and expanded from there.

John Elway Dealerships ranks No. 123 on Automotive News' list of the top 150 dealership groups, retailing 6,517 new vehicles in 2022. Lithia, of Medford, Ore., ranks No. 1 on that same list, retailing 271,596 new vehicles in 2022. Lithia's sales figures include dealerships outside the U.S.

Pinnacle Mergers & Acquisitions, a Frisco, Texas, buy-sell firm, represented Lithia in the Bentley-Lotus transaction. The sale of the Bentley-Lotus store was Lithia's first U.S. divestiture since it sold an Alabama Subaru dealership in March, Dobry confirmed.