Automotive News - September 21, 2020 - Best Practices Supplement - S15

SEPTEMBER 21, 2020 | 15

The Lewisville
Autoplex
service center
customized this
Ford F-350.

Expanding reach
Baum sold cars part time while he was in
college and joined his father and uncle Doug
full time after he graduated from Texas Christian University in 2005. He immediately started looking for new ways to sell cars. The dealership created an eBay Motors store and later
expanded into exotic cars and lifted trucks,
using Instagram to generate leads and create a
national following.
"I started noticing that anytime we took a
good trade, let's say a Corvette, a GT500 Mustang, things like that, these were selling - and
selling all across the country, not just in our
backyard," Baum said. That led to a standalone used operation with the Autoplex name,
which was merged back into the Mitsubishi
store when the new facility opened last year.
Exotic cars listed on the dealership's website
include a 2015 Lamborghini Aventador at
$299,995 and a 2019 Porsche 911 GT3 RS at
$226,480. There also was a first-generation
Acura NSX supercar in red and the new gener-

The dealership is averaging about 50 new-car
sales a month compared with about 110 used
vehicles, Baum said. Since inaugurating the new
facility in June, used sales have risen from about
90 vehicles per month. And the year has started
strong, with used sales up 38 percent year-overyear for the best January in the company's history.

"I started noticing that
anytime we took a good
trade, let's say a Corvette, a
GT500 Mustang, things like
that, these were selling -
and selling all across the
country, not just in our
backyard."
David Baum Jr., Lewisville Autoplex

ation in white.
The Autoplex offers free delivery within 500
miles and has a 4.8-star rating on Google,
which gives shoppers confidence and opens
up the market to nearby states, including
parts of Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana, Baum said.
And while the dealership isn't the only one
in Texas to offer lifted trucks, it does offer custom configurations. Part of the 12-bay service
center is dedicated to lifting vehicles for sale
on the lot, building 10 to 12 a month. Plus,
customers can have their own vehicles modified. One recent job cost $16,000, Baum said.

Getting a lift
As with the foray into exotics, the expansion
into lifted trucks was born after an interesting
trade.

"We traded for a lifted GMC Denali truck in
2012, and that was our first lifted truck. I remember, because everybody was obsessed
with that truck," Baum said.
It lasted only one day on the lot.
"So we started buying lifted trucks. And then
we started building lifted trucks at other shops
around town that did the custom work. But we
were outsourcing all that work," he said. "Then I
realized, we should be building these trucks inhouse, helping our service and parts department."
Each year, Lewisville Autoplex is represented
at the SEMA aftermarket show with four or five
custom builds, partnering with parts companies.
Of the 100 or so used pickups and Jeeps on the
dealer website last month, a dozen highly modified examples were priced at more than $80,000.
The priciest was a 2020 Ford F-350 Platinum
crew cab with 60 miles on the odometer at
$97,901 with a long list of custom modifications,
including a 6-inch Full Throttle Suspension Lift
Kit.
"We really developed our name through our
Instagram page - we have almost 20,000 followers," Baum said. "We started it to try and
sell a car. Instead it turned into everybody
messaging us: 'Where do I get these wheels?
What size lift is that? How much would it cost
to do that to my truck?' So it's created a huge
following for our store nationwide." c

Automotive News - September 21, 2020 - Best Practices Supplement

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive News - September 21, 2020 - Best Practices Supplement