Four dealerships changed hands in single-store transactions late in the third quarter or in October, with the stores located in the Northeast, Midwest and South.
Here’s a look at the deals involving domestic and import mass-market brands:
Adam Silverleib acquired his second dealership with the purchase of Copeland Volkswagen of Brockton in Massachusetts, south of Boston — the same store his family had owned until the mid-1980s.
Silverleib on Oct. 4 bought the dealership from Todd Copeland of Copeland Automotive Group. The dealership has been renamed Silko Volkswagen of Brockton.
Silverleib also owns Silko Honda in Raynham, Mass., which is south of Brockton. The Honda store has been in Silverleib’s family since 1973.
For Silverleib, a third-generation dealer and president of Silko Auto Group, the acquisition is a return to the Volkswagen brand. Silverleib’s grandfather opened the Volkswagen dealership in Brockton in 1962. It was in the family until around 1984, Silverleib said, and would change hands over the years. Copeland had owned it since 2019, Silverleib said.
“I basically bought back the original point,” Silverleib said.
Silverleib said the Volkswagen dealership was an opportunity for his group to expand, and he feels like the German brand is moving in the right direction.
“It gives us kind of boots in both camps,” Silverleib told Automotive News. “Geographically, this works for me. The distance between the two points is about a 15-minute ride. There’s some efficiencies there as far as the geography goes. There’s definitely some family history to this point and so that was like the cherry on top.”
Copeland Automotive has four dealerships, including two it bought from Prime Automotive Group in April.
Gordon Wisbach of GW Marketing Solutions, a dealership brokerage firm in Newton Centre, Mass., represented Silverleib in the Volkswagen transaction.
