General Motors Loyalist Ed Bozarth Sells Chevys in Big Way

Ed Bozarth is a megadealer who focuses on one brand: General Motors' Chevrolet.

That's reflected in the name of his 5-store group, Ed Bozarth #1 Chevrolet based in Las Vegas. He sells Chevys there as well as Topeka, KS; Grand Junction, CO; and Aurora, CO, a Denver suburb.

“What carries the market out here in the Mountain West is that everyone else advertises against Chevy, even GMC,” Bozarth says, referring to GM's light-truck division.

He has had other franchises in the past. He ran a Dodge store in Topeka, but gave that up in 1985 to focus on Chevy. He also represented Oldsmobile and Saturn, brands that eventually GM killed.

Bozarth is a GM loyalist, but not without a disappointment here and there, such as at having lost the Buick franchise to a GMC dealer. “They should have left Buick with us in Grand Junction,” he says.

Two of his individual stores are on the Ward's Dealer 500. His group is No.91 on the latest Ward's Megadealer 100 with revenues of $241.1 million in 2010, up $37 million from 2009, a dire year for auto sales. The group sold about twice as many used units than new, 5,344 and 2,656, respectively.

“We have learned to be highly profitable, showing sales-volume growth combined with rising service, parts and body-shop grosses,” Bozarth says.

He also is keen on customer satisfaction, boasting that his 130% index score “is an A-plus.”