Prime opens Audi, Acura, and Porsche dealerships in Westwood
A few years back, motorists leaving Rte. 95 and driving down Rte. 1 South in Westwood could look to the right and see a group of businesses: a daycare center, menswear store, pool and patio company, and some warehouses.
David Rosenberg, president of Prime Motor Group, who drove by daily, instead saw that large parcel of property as an opportunity.
It took a few years, but that portion of the Rte. 1 Automile, which stretches from West Roxbury through Dedham, Westwood, and into Norwood, became home to Prime’s new Audi, Acura, and Porsche dealerships.
All three are celebrating their grand opening.
The new facilities are in an expanding campus with Prime’s Mercedes-Benz of Westwood. If you take a short drive back up Rte. 1, you’ll find Prime Toyota and Honda of Boston located on the Dedham-West Roxbury line.
“Each of the new buildings is designed and badged to its brand,” says Rosenberg. “They’re spacious, with an open plan, and feature WiFi, cafes, and quiet areas. The drive-in service drives are bigger than the entire service departments in some of my old dealerships.”
“Location-location-location,” is one of Rosenberg’s favorite phrases, one he used both in talking about these three new buildings and also earlier this fall when opening his new Hyundai location on Rte. 228 in Rockland, just a few hundred yards from Rte. 3 South.
Rosenberg’s father Ira used the same philosophy in building the successful Ira Motor Group from the mid-1960s to 2000.
When the Rosenbergs sold the family’s dealerships to Group 1 Automotive, the third largest automotive dealership in the country, David Rosenberg stayed on to run the operation.
In 2006 he left Group 1 Automotive to work with his father again, forming Prime Motor Group. “My dad and I owned Toyota and Hyundai franchises in Saco, Maine, at that time,” he says.
Ever since, growth for Prime Motor Group has been steady, with the first acquisition coming in 2007, when Prime bought the nine dealerships of the former Clair Auto Group.
The count now is 26 dealerships and 2 collision centers spread over 4 states.
But the work never is done. “We subscribe to the Japanese ideal of kaizan, the philosophy of continuous improvement,” Rosenberg says.
“There’s always the next thing to do to improve, either by expanding or changing your existing franchises for the better. Even if you think you’re stable, you’re losing ground because everyone else is getting better.”
Prime already has more building in the works with new homes coming for Volvo in Rockland, Ford in Auburn, and for the group’s Norwich, VT, Subaru dealership.
Rosenberg is in the process of reorganizing Prime with three group managers, each in charge of six to eight dealerships.
“When we had a handful of dealerships, I knew everything that was happening in every department every day,” he says. “When we finalize everything with the three new stores, we’ll have 1,800 employees overall or, as I prefer to call them, Prime family members. These days we’re focusing more on training than ever before.”
Rosenberg’s goal is to provide the best customer experience possible.
“Like it or not, thanks to the internet, we’re a commodity business now. If you want a specific car, new or used, you can go online and find as many as you want.”
That’s where Prime’s multiple outlets for brands such as Mercedes, Honda, Hyundai, Ford, Acura, Toyota, and Subaru can be a competitive advantage.
“We might not have the exact car you want at one of our Toyota dealerships,” he says, “but we almost certainly do at one of our other four Toyota outlets. For us, there’s a cost advantage in not having to keep as much as a 300-car inventory at each place because we can move cars on short notice.”
Rosenberg, like most consumers, looks at the future and wonders about the questions facing the auto industry.
Will the Trump administration change the CAFE standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy)? What is the future for electric vehicles (EVs)? And for autonomous driving?
“Right now, gas is cheap. Sixty percent of our sales are SUVs and trucks and only 40 percent are sedans. In New England, the RAV4 has replaced the Camry as Toyota’s best-selling vehicle. What that means for EVs is that we wait and see. Manufacturers have been spending a ton of money on them. Toyota also is looking heavily at fuel cells.
“The reality right now is the consumer’s love affair with crossovers and SUVs has become a long-term trend, and it’s not going to end any time soon.”
Nor is the need to service them. Rosenberg says vehicles used to require an average of 2.3 service visits per year. Today, that’s dropped to 1.
However, Rosenberg doesn’t see the service departments shrinking. “In 2008 the industry sold 9.8 million vehicles,” he says. “This year, it will sell more than 17 million. So there are more cars on the road. Even though service visits per car are down, there are many more cars out there to be serviced.”
As for autonomous cars, Rosenberg says, “We know they’re out there. There’s still a lot of fine-tuning with the technology. You’ve got to be awfully close to 100 percent reliable when it comes to safety. I don’t see the autonomous cars coming out for the next three to five years, but likely thereafter.”
Rosenberg has become a fan of lane-keeping assist and wishes more cars had autonomous braking, such as the van that rear-ended him on Rte. 93. “Traffic had come to a stop. I looked in the rearview mirror and saw the van driver wasn’t paying attention and just had time to brace myself,” he says.
Rosenberg wasn’t hurt badly, but the Porsche Panamera he was driving sustained heavy damage.
“There’s still a place for the human driver,” he says, “but what’s going to happen when you have autonomous cars out there obeying the rules and lots of other drivers still out there, texting and driving?”
You figure they’ll be Prime opportunities for the group’s collision centers.
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