Fast cars, fast rise for Miami Lamborghini dealer Brett David

Posted: 28 May 2011 07:31 AM PDT

Sharpie Lamborghini Miami

The top-selling Audi dealer in the United States is 23 years old — and he has been running the business since he was 19.

His name is Brett David, a wunderkind who took over Prestige Imports of Miami in 2007 after a tragedy.

David inherited the business when his father and automotive mentor, Irv David, died unexpectedly of a fourth heart attack at age 56.

He almost didn’t get the chance. Some people around him thought he was too young for the responsibility.

And in a letter penned just six months before his death, Irv David instructed Brett to sell the dealership because of the strain it would cause. The letter was delivered to Brett after his father’s death.

“My father said it was the stress of the business that had killed him,” said Brett, who will be 24 next month. “He wanted me to sell the dealership.”

That was one wish Brett said he couldn’t honor. Given his concern for employees, his vision for the store and a streak of rebelliousness that manifested itself early in life, Brett David had to give it a go.

In 2010, Prestige Audi sold 1,610 new cars and was recognized as the national leader in sales volume.

“One part of it is that I would be conquering something that took my father’s life,” said David, who also operates Lamborghini Miami on the site.

Brett David<br /> Chief Executive Officer

In his first full year in charge of Prestige Imports, Audi sales jumped from 500 new cars in 2006 to 2,000 new cars in 2007, David said. It was at that point that the store became Audi’s top-selling new-car dealership in the United States.

The key to growth was an emphasis on service, creative marketing — including the hand-painting of a Lamborghini with a Sharpie pen — and new bonus incentives stressing customer satisfaction, David said.

He said his father was old school, focusing on immediate sale and profit. “I believe service is what sells the second car. We set up a structure to reflect that.”

David said he pegged bonuses to dealership scores on customer satisfaction and service satisfaction instead of on sales growth and gross. He knew from working at the dealership that customers would sometimes complain about cars with blemishes or other issues.

That was going to change. In one of his first acts as CEO, David called an all-employee meeting and told them he wanted them all to stay, but they had to buy into his vision. Vendors to the dealer received a similar message a few days later.

David’s youthful exuberance led to a marketing coup. He shocked some Lamborghini and exotic-car enthusiasts by commissioning a South Florida graffiti artist to paint a pearl white $255,000 Lamborghini Gallardo with a Sharpie pen.

The Sharpie Lamborghini went viral on the Internet and made famous David’s personal ride around Miami.

- Automotive News

Video: Lamborghini Aventador LP700-4

Volkswagen inaugurates new plant at Chattanooga, Tenn

Posted: 25 May 2011 01:41 PM PDT

Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, and the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood have today inaugurated the new Volkswagen Group plant in the United States in the presence of prominent representatives from politics, business and the media. At Chattanooga, Tennessee, over 2,000 employees are to produce up to 150,000 vehicles per year. The plant sets new standards in terms of sustainable, resource-efficient production.

Foundations laid for profitable growth of Volkswagen Group in North America
Model plant for sustainable, resource-efficient automobile production

At the inauguration ceremony, which was also attended by Dr. Klaus Scharioth, German Ambassador to the United States, Bill Haslam, Governor of the U.S. State of Tennessee, Jonathan Browning, President and CEO of Volkswagen Group of America, as well as U.S. senators Robert Corker and Lamar Alexander, Prof. Winterkorn stated: “The Volkswagen Group has finally arrived as a local manufacturer in the United States. We are proud to be part of this great automobile nation as a producer, an employer and as a friend and good neighbor to people in the region.”

Since construction started in 2009, an automobile plant including body shop, paint shop, assembly facility, technical testing center, academy for the initial and advanced training of employees, and a supplier park with eight companies has been built on a 5.6 km² site in Chattanooga. The design production capacity of the plant is 150,000 vehicles per year. The manufacturing depth for the Passat produced here will be of the order of 85 percent. 1,700 people are already employed directly by Volkswagen in Chattanooga. 10,000 additional jobs will be created in the U.S. component supply industry.

Volkswagen is investing about one billion US dollars in the development of the facility at Chattanooga, which will be among the world’s most advanced and environmentally compatible automobile plants. The new plant is in line with the highest requirements of the U.S. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standard, which lays down stringent provisions for the sustainable, environmentally compatible construction of buildings.

One of the key measures taken at the plant is the use of a painting process without any filler, which reduces CO2 emissions by about 20 percent. Water efficiency at the plant also meets the most stringent requirements. Volkswagen has built the world’s first automobile paint shop to use a waterless separation process for topcoat application. Thanks to the use of collected rainwater, water consumption at the Chattanooga plant is also considerably lower than at facilities of a comparable size. In addition, the U.S. plant is the first Volkswagen facility to rely entirely on energy-saving LED systems for outdoor lighting. The production buildings and offices are also equipped only with energy-saving lamps controlled by motion sensors. The entire lighting system of the plant uses some 20 percent less energy than a comparable facility.

The United States is one of the world’s largest and most important automobile markets. The new U.S. plant lays the foundations for Volkswagen to meet its target of boosting Group sales in the United States to more than a million vehicles per year by 2018 at the same time as winning a market share of about six percent for the Volkswagen Group.

The U.S. Passat from Chattanooga, specially tailored to meet the needs of American customers, and the Jetta produced in Mexico are key elements in Volkswagen’s offensive in North America. The next generation of the iconic Beetle will pick up the threads of the brand’s legenda