Sunny Rathore typically has multiple meetings lined up with vehicle manufacturers each year at the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers annual meeting. But due to a NAMAD scheduling issue last year, he had none.
That turned out to be a blessing in disguise and now Rathore is dealer principal of a Nissan store in Austin. It’s the longtime dealership employee’s first store.
“A lot of stars aligned for me to make this deal happen,” Rathore told WardsAuto on a Zoom call.
A little help from Group 1
With no meetings pre-arranged, he just walked into the room where Nissan was holding meetings. Rathore and the Nissan folks “hit it off,” he said.
At the time, Rathore was general manager of the Continental Automotive Group’s First Texas Honda store in Austin, Texas. He had been with CAG for 10 years and had a stellar record, including boosting sales and service performance for its Subaru store.
The Nissan reps in the room were impressed by his CV, according to Rathore. “The next thing you know, I’m sitting with the national rep,” he said.
Given that he had so many Nissan reps’ attention, Rathore decided to find out what was going on with a Group 1 Nissan store in North Austin that had suddenly changed to a Hyundai store.
Group 1 had unilaterally decided to close the Nissan store in North Austin, as it had two other Nissan dealerships in the area, Rathore discovered.
He pitched the idea of opening another Nissan dealership in North Austin. There were plenty of Nissan units in operation in that area, and they needed a dealership to service them, Rathore told the Nissan reps.
“I would like to throw my name in the hat” as the person who could do that, Rathore said. Continental Automotive Group owned land next to the Honda store where a new Nissan dealership could be built, he added.
Initially, Nissan said it wasn’t interested. But Rathore kept pressing them. Then a month later, “the phone rang and they said, you’re right, we need to reopen.” They wanted a presentation right away.
“It was quite a roller coaster,” Rathore said.
The CAG card
During his ten years with CAG, Rathore was a star player, Genny Hill, an executive with the group, told WardsAuto on a Zoom call. After his accomplishments with the Subaru store, they committed to help him achieve his dream of owning a dealership, she said.
“He’s been actively reaching out and networking with the manufacturers to try to have an opportunity like this, and we told him that we would be his partner and provide the investment and the CAG resources if he was able to bring an open point,” Hill said.
With CAG’s backing, Rathore had been applying for open points for some six or seven years with no success. They were always the second choice, Rathore said.
“There were points where we were just like, are we ever going to get one? You know, this second place just hurts. It’s like, you’re so close.”
This time would be different. Nissan wanted the north Austin dealership to open within two miles of the previous store, and CAG committed to build a new facility on the land by its nearby Honda store.
It also committed to providing back office support to the new store. Nissan interviewed three candidates, but with the CAG support, Rathore won.
Another stipulation was that the Nissan store had to open within one year. Fortunately, CAG had an available building in the area which it spent $5 million remodeling as a temporary Nissan showroom and service facility while the new dealership is being built.
On August 1, the new North Austin Nissan dealership opened for business. The store is part of the CAG group, and Rathore owns a 51% stake.
An inspiration
Rathore had a guiding light in the years he spent trying to buy a dealership — his son, Everest, 11.
Everest was born with Apraxia, a condition in which the brain has trouble sending the right signals telling the body to move or speak. It does not affect mental ability. Everest didn’t learn to speak until he was 6 or 7 years old, Rathore said.
He and his son, who has toured his father’s new store and now has a card identifying him as CEO of North Austin Nissan, “made an agreement that we would both do hard things,” Rathore said.
His son, who is homeschooled, has to work much harder to learn to speak, and to make new friends. “Whenever things get difficult to me, I just fall back on ‘we can do hard things,’” Rathore said.
Once operations at North Austin Nissan are fully up and running, Rathore will bring in a general manager and take on a bigger role pursuing future acquisitions, in which he will partner with CAG, he said.
Texas is the preferred location, though they are open to points outside of the state, Rathore said. They will acquire franchises opportunistically, but one brand stands out on the wish list. “Like most people, I would like to be a Toyota dealer,” Rathore said.
