Dealership Returns to Original Owner
California store’s founder plans to expand and renovate it, focusing on truck sales.
Store's new owner wants to focus sales on trucks.
Stellantis
A California auto dealership that’s changed hands several times in the past 14 years is back with its original owner.
The transaction, brokered by Tim Lamb Group, returned Folsom Lake Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram store to Fifth Wave Automotive Group.
Fifth Wave President Carlos Hidalgo opened the dealership in 2001 in his entrée to retail ownership. He sold it to York Capital in 2010, and York then sold it to Michigan-based Victory Automotive Group.
Family-owned Fifth Wave bought it back this month from Victory.
“It was my first dealership, and I was sad to sell it, but the timing was right,” Hidalgo said in a press release on the transaction. “When Steve Corle with the Tim Lamb Group reached out with this opportunity, I knew I had to jump on it. I have always liked the location and I know that the Bay area has become a truck market electrifying the rest of the world.”
Dealership staff will be a mix of former Victory Automotive employees and Fifth Wave employees who’ve been with the founding company since the store opened.
Fifth Wave now has three dealerships, including Stockton Hyundai and San Leandro Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram.
“I was really looking for a store that would allow me to concentrate on trucks, and I believe I found it,” Hidalgo said of the Folsom store. “I look forward to growing the brand even further, offering a bigger variety of vehicles, and concentrating more on trucks.”
Hidalgo plans to expand and renovate the store in the next two years, adding 9,000 square feet of space to the existing 52,000 square feet to accommodate more service stalls and a new Jeep showroom.
Originally posted on Auto Dealer Today
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