John Fette was looking for another dealership for one of his twin sons to operate when he got a call from broker Dan Murphy about a Ford store on the market in the small town of Warwick in southern New York.
One of the sons, John Hart Fette — who goes by Hart — and his wife Kristina drove up to Warwick from the Fette Ford store in New Jersey to take a look. As they parked in downtown Warwick to buy a coffee, a woman who had just arrived greeted two other women as well as another who was writing a parking ticket.
The Fettes were sold on the area.
“Everyone just knew everyone and it seemed so nice,” said Kristina Fette, whose husband Hart Fette is now vice president of Fette Ford Warwick. Kristina Fette is marketing manager at the dealership.
The Fette family acquired Kaytes Ford from Leo Kaytes Jr. on April 22. The transaction is emblematic of the continued importance in retail automotive of family-owned dealerships, and of their importance to the communities in which they operate.
“We’ve learned from being in town that Leo Jr. and Senior were instrumental in so many organizations,” Kristina Fette said.
Fette and her husband moved to Warwick from Clifton, New Jersey, where her father-in-law owns Ford, Kia and Infiniti dealerships. The towns are about an hour apart geographically but worlds apart in other ways.
Clifton is part of a major metroplex, considered a bedroom community for New York City. Warwick is a small town with some 32,000 inhabitants. It is on a highway, “but it’s a single-lane highway,” Kristina Fette said. “That’s all there is up here, single-lane highways.”
Fette Ford Warwick has already dived into being part of the community.
“We sponsored a car show yesterday, literally across the street from the dealership,” Kristina Fette told WardsAuto on a Zoom call.
Being part of the community is not new to the Fette Auto Group. John Fette is on numerous charitable organization boards in New Jersey, including the Boys & Girls Clubs, Kristina Fette said.
That kind of community involvement was important to Leo Kaytes Jr. when he considered selling the dealership, Kristina Fette said.
Fette Auto Group kept all the employees at the Warwick dealership, John Fette told WardsAuto on the same Zoom call. “They all stayed on the same pay plans,” he said. “We just liked the whole way it was set up. It was like a gift. We kind of just walked right in.”
The building isn’t image-compliant; it looks like a barn. But Ford isn’t pushing for changes to the facility. That’s because the town of Warwick is “very strict” on the appearance of buildings, John Fette said.
The current appearance “fits the town,” he said. “I think Ford’s gonna have trouble getting the town to approve what they want done, which is, you know, the big box store.”
Indeed, part of the deal was that Ford wouldn’t require a facility change, Murphy, the broker who handled the deal, told WardsAuto on a Zoom call. “We have assurances from the manufacturer that while they will make a request, they realize the town won’t allow them to do just that,” he said.
More Mustangs, no more bird
Other changes are already underway, however. The dealership had very limited inventory. Indeed, it had no vehicles in the showroom. There was a bird in a large cage, however. “There’s no more bird,” Fette said.
In its place he installed a Ford Mustang convertible, which sold on the day they started selling vehicles, May 1. Another customer came in that same day and also wanted a Mustang convertible.
“So, we sold two convertibles in one day by putting the car on the showroom floor. The first day, so it was crazy,” Fette said.
They have brought in around 20 additional vehicles from the Clifton Ford store, he said, but are still not that well set for inventory. They sold close to 40 new units the first month, Fette said.
There is also opportunity to expand the service business, including a possible Quick Lane, he said. The Warwick store has 15 service bays, a hand car wash and a detailer on site. It has three service advisor stations and a heated service area. That’s a good recruitment tool in an area with cold winters, Fette said.
The Ford brand isn’t on every buyer’s wish list, Murphy said. “On a scale of one to 10, it’s probably a five,” he said.
But the Warwick store was a good fit for Fette because it was a familiar brand and also family-owned, Murphy said. John Fette is a third-generation Ford dealer; his family has owned the New Jersey Ford store for 75 years.
Adding a second Ford franchise will allow Fette to pull from two different inventories of Ford products, Murphy said. “And, theoretically, you could run the business at less cost because you have a much larger inventory to work off of.”
Wide-open opportunity for Ford Pro, trucks
The area Fette sees the most opportunity is the Ford Pro side of the business, which is commercial sales. The sales team in Warwick is excited to get into the commercial business, an area the store hadn’t focused on, he said. “The whole area is wide-open for Ford,” Fette said.
That’s a big plus because, given Ford’s truck-heavy lineup, “if you are a Ford dealer and you aren’t going to get into commercial business, you’re not going to be a Ford dealer anymore because you’re not going to make it,” Fette said.
They brought a Ford F-550 dump truck up to Warwick from the Clifton store to demonstrate what’s available, Fette said. “Yeah, we’re excited.”
