CarGurus is now a certified vendor in Jaguar Land Rover Retailer Marketing Program, making the online car marketplace a top recommended option for the automaker’s dealers for listings, search engine marketing and co-op programs. Jaguar Land Rover dealers can now tap into 100-percent co-op program reimbursement on all CarGurus products, with the reimbursement program being […] [Read More]

Jasen Rice learned well his lessons as an inventory performance manager for vAuto. He left that organization in 2013 to start Lotpop, a company providing online and on-lot inventory analysis and management services for smaller dealerships. Zach Klempf worked part-time at a dealership while attending Emory University. He “fell in love” with the business, but […] [Read More]

Rick Ricart is now the president of Ricart Automotive Group. He was previously the vice president and director of sales and marketing at the Columbus, Ohio dealer group. Ricart will be among the speakers at Used Car Week next week in Scottsdale, Ariz.  He will be a panelist on the Executive Suite: The View from the Top […] [Read More]

Lithia Motors and Shift Technologies will continue to operate separately, but their recently announced partnership creates a wide range of synergies, said Lithia president and chief executive Bryan DeBoer.   Lithia is keenly interested in Shift’s used-vehicle procurement technology, which is key to both companies’ growth strategies, DeBoer said.   Shift, based in San Francisco, […] [Read More]

Record earnings, the role of diversification in achieving those earnings and the prominence of used vehicles as part of that diversification were among the main themes of the Penske Automotive Group third quarter 2018 earnings results. PAG and its chairman and CEO Roger Penske reported during the results call on Oct. 25 that the record […] [Read More]

AutoNation doesn’t plan on building any new AutoNation USA pre-owned stores  in 2019, and will instead focus on the Customer Care piece of its brand extension strategy. “We are encouraged by current progress and are continuing to evaluate the existing stores,” chief operating officer Lance Iserman said during opening remarks of the dealer group’s latest […] [Read More]

Another publicly traded dealer group has made a significant investment in the online car sales space. AutoNation said Tuesday it has obtained roughly a 7-percent ownership stake in Vroom after a $50 million strategic investment in the online car retailer. “We are excited about our investment in Vroom and the potential collaboration between our companies,” […] [Read More]

Reconditioning is a vital part of most any retail used-car sales operations, including those in the growing standalone pre-owned store space. With that in mind, EchoPark Automotive — which is Sonic Automotive’s chain of used-car stores — has lined up auto reconditioning software provider AutoMobile Technologies to provide workflow automation software to its reconditioning facilities, […] [Read More]

Kerrigan Advisors has expanded to the East Coast. The California-based firm, which advises dealers on the sell-side of M&A, has opened its second office, setting up shop in the Washington, D.C. metro area. The D.C. office will be led by Gabe Robleto, who joins the company as vice president of buy/sell advisory. Robleto was most […] [Read More]

Mitsubishi Motors North America has teamed up with Dealer-FX to launch a digital platform designed to help its dealers make service visits more seamless for their customers. This customer experience management platform is called MICAR and is based on the ONE platform from Dealer-FX. The ONE platform is designed to connect each phase of service […] [Read More]