Fort Collins car dealership buys Garnsey and Wheeler

By Christopher Ortiz

cortiz@fortcollinsnow.com

In an effort to become more regional, Spradley-Barr Ford is entering the Greeley market with open arms from its competition.

In October, the Fort Collins dealership announced it was buying Garnsey & Wheeler of Greeley and Fort Morgan and the Lincoln-Mercury line from the Ehrlich family dealerships of Greeley.

The acquisitions will now extend Spradley-Barr business from Cheyenne to Fort Collins and now Greeley.

Co-owner Bill Barr said the move will help his dealership compete in the overall northern Colorado market.

"Northern Colorado is more of a region than anything," Barr said. "You see a lot of different players doing different things," mentioning Centerra's Motorplex and the Iron Mountain Autoplex in Greeley.

Spradley-Barr took over the Garnsey dealership, at 47th Avenue and U.S. 34 Bypass, and Ehrlich's Lincoln-Mercury line on Oct. 27. Barr said they weren't actively shopping for a Greeley dealership, but when they caught wind that owners of Garnsey & Wheeler were looking to sell, they saw an opportunity.

"We wanted to be able to expand, and that store has been in business for 85 years, and we wanted a strong store," Barr said. "It's a perfect match. It's something they wanted to do."

Barr offered jobs to all current employees in the Greeley locations and does not have plans for layoffs or major changes.

"One thing we want to expand on is the used car inventory," Barr said.

John Chamberlain, who made a huge splash in the auto market last year when he opened up his 1,000-car dealership, Iron Mountain Autoplex on U.S. 34, said he welcomes Spradley-Barr into the mix.

"I understand why (they) would want to come to Greeley. It's a good move," Chamberlain said.

And he welcomes the competition.

"I expect them to be aggressive in the market, and that is good," he said. "Competition is good for the market."

But for Chamberlain, business has been spotty, as he puts it, in the last year.

"The auto industry has been tough for the past three years, especially for domestic cars," he said.

Iron Mountain sells Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep lines.

But he said the industry goes through cycles and that northern Colorado has been somewhat isolated from the decline in car sales nationwide.

In August, the National Automobile Dealers Association lowered its sales projections for 2007 from 16.5 million to 16.1 million.

But in northern Colorado, auto sales haven't been as affected. According to the Colorado Auto Outlook report, put out by the Colorado Automobile Dealers Association, Weld County was second in the state behind Boulder County and saw a 7 percent increase in car registrations between January and June of this year, compared to the same time last year. Larimer County, which is third in the state, saw a 6.5 percent increase. New car registrations is a indicator used to measure car sales.

Chamberlain said he is glad that a locally owned dealership is taking over Garnsey & Wheeler, a family-owned company, as opposed to a privately held one.

"Privately held dealerships hold back the community and the money goes back to the company," said Chamberlain, who has been in the auto industry for 28 years.

Chamberlain said acquisitions like Spradley-Barr's are becoming the new trend in auto dealers.

"I think that consolidation is coming to the auto industry," he said. "You are going to see more and more multi (brand) dealerships buying single-point dealerships."