David Wilson is keeping things in perspective when it comes to cooling U.S. auto sales.
“They say business has plateaued, but if it has, I like the view—it’s at 90% of an all-time high,” said the owner and the chief executive of Wilson Automotive in Orange, whose 19 dealerships combined for a 2.7% sales jump last year to $2.15 billion, and placed No. 11 on the Business Journal’s list of largest private companies in Orange County (see related stories, pages 1 and 19 to 34).
The group outpaced the national market for new cars—U.S. auto dealers sold 17.55 million vehicles last year, a slight uptick of 0.4% compared to 2015, according to Autodata Corp. in New York.
Most of the revenue lift came from Wilson’s out-of-state dealerships, while his California businesses were “about flat to a little bit down.”Â
“We have two dealerships in Mexico, two in Arizona, and one in Nevada, and those five dealerships are accounting for all of our growth,” Wilson said, adding that his group is “trying to deploy capital into other states because the taxes are so prohibitive in California.”
He sold Volkswagen of San Bernardino to Car Pros Kia in Huntington Beach in May and last week sold Desert Lexus in Cathedral City to Mount Pleasant, Iowa-based Shottenkirk Automotive Group.
“These were our two smallest dealerships that accounted for less than 1% of our sales, and 1% of our profit,” he said.
Toyota of Orange is the group’s top performer at about $300 million in 2016 revenue, followed by Right Toyota in Scottsdale at $225 million, Newport Lexus at $185 million, and Toyota of Riverside, a close fourth at $162 million. The numbers include proceeds from new and used vehicle sales, service and parts, as well as finance and insurance revenue.
Wilson—who’s on the Business Journal’s list of the 50 wealthiest people in the county, with an estimated $650 million—is also diversifying his investments.
“I’m at a stage in my life where I’m looking at real estate in the healthcare industry, the specialty hospitals and retirement homes,” he said. “We are in escrow in a specialty hospital in Texas. We will not operate it; it’s to diversify our real estate portfolio.”
Wilson started out in the auto dealer business while attending the University of Northern Iowa, changing oil and tires at a local car dealership in his spare time. He became a car salesman—and eventually a dealer—after leaving an oil filter out of a telephone company’s van, ruining its engine. His laborer’s wages couldn’t cover the damages, so he switched to sales, making lemons out of lemonade and the career decision of a lifetime.
