Foreign auto makers tap minority dealers.Jaguar, Nissan put black dealers behind the wheel After years of talking about adding color to its dealer base, Jaguar is finally on the prowl. David Stephens, owner of Falls Lincoln-Mercury in Wichita Falls, Texas Wichita Falls is a city in Wichita County, Texas, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 104,197. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay and Wichita counties. , is scheduled to open up a Jaguar dealership, Millennium Motor Cars, this spring in Piano, Texas. Stephens, 47, graduated from the Minority Auto Dealer Development program in 1992, and became a GM dealer a year later. In 1997 his store had sales of $18.2 million. Stephens says he approached Jaguar executives last February to discuss the availability of a dealership. "They were looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. someone who had good experience and was proven in this business," says Stephens. "Stephens knowledge and his strong record of customer satisfaction were elements that we were looking for," says Mark Miller, vice president of corporate and public affairs Those public information, command information, and community relations activities directed toward both the external and internal publics with interest in the Department of Defense. Also called PA. See also command information; community relations; public information. at Jaguar Cars For other uses, see Jaguar (disambiguation). Jaguar Cars Limited is a luxury car manufacturer, originally based at Browns Lane, Coventry, England but now at Whitley, Coventry. . Stephens acknowledges there'll be a lot of pressure that goes with being the company's first African American African American Multiculture A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. See Race. dealer--but he also views it as an opportunity. "There'll be a great deal of focus on us as we get started. Other potential prestige dealers may view this as a positive if we do it right or as a negative if we do it wrong." In other auto dealer news: talk about karma. Two years after Nissan moved to terminate the dealership contract of a dealer videotaped using racial slurs against an employee, that same dealership was sold to African American car dealer T.J. Johnson. The new store, in Newport News, Virginia Newport News is an independent city in Virginia. It is on the southwestern end of the Virginia Peninsula, on the north shore of the James River extending to its mouth at Hampton Roads. The origin of the unusual name of "Newport News" is unclear. , will be called Tidewater tidewater, in U.S. history, that part of the Atlantic coastal plain between the shoreline and the farthest upstream points in rivers reached by oceanic tides. In many cases the fall line is given as the western boundary. Nissan. "T.J. has an outstanding track record of fairness toward customers and employees," says Mike Seergy, vice president and general manager of Nissan Division. "Nissan couldn't have asked for a better dealer for this key location." Johnson, 48, becomes the first African American appointed since Nissan recently announced an initiative to increase its minority dealer base by 25% by the year 2002. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion