Stevens did switch to Acura when he stopped selling Pontiacs. I don't know anything about the reason why. The Pontiac dealership in Los Gatos was moved down the street and merged with Moore Buick, which I'm pretty sure was the last family-owned dealership in the area. The story about the new Pontiac dealership on West Capitol expressway makes sense. For many years most of the new car dealers were located on the El Camino Real (Sunnyvale/Mountain View area), and Stevens Creek Blvd (Santa Clara and San Jose). West Capitol Expressway was in South San Jose, and as that area was being developed there were a number of new car dealers that opened on Capitol Expressway.
Stevens eventually sold the Acura store in Los Gatos to T M Management. He also sold his Honda store to them (which was located about a block away). I worked for T M Management at the Honda store briefly in 1990-1991. Both of these facilities were too small for the volume of cars they were selling at the time. The last time I was down in Los Gatos (about five years ago) the Honda store was gone, having been replaced by condos. Not surprising, since the housing in that area is so expensive.
The slight numerical differences in the addresses of these dealerships makes sense too. Sometimes a dealership started small and needed to grow, so they moved, sometimes right next door or across the street. Sometimes it was the opposite, a car line was selling less, and wanted to downsize. Many times the larger dealerships just swallowed up one of the smaller car lots that was right next door. I worked at St Claire Cadillac in the 1980's. It was on Stevens Creek Blvd in Santa Clara, and it was huge, the largest Cadillac dealer in Northern CA. However, during the 80's and early 90''s, as Acura, Lexus, Infiniti, Toyota, etc, were growing, Cadillac sales were dropping. St Claire was owned by a guy named Don Lucas, who also owned the local BMW dealership. As Cadillac sales dropped and BMW sales increased, he needed less room for Cadillacs and more room for BMW's. So he moved the Cadillac dealership to the BMW location and vice versus. (They were only about a block away). The same thing happened with the Pontiac Dealership which was across the street from St. Claire Cadillac. Allison Pontiac closed and was replaced by Stevens Creek Toyota (which had been half a block away on the same side of the street), and Stevens Creek Honda (also owned by Don Lucas) replaced the Dodge Dealership, etc....
As an aside, the "dealership row" on Stevens Creek Blvd is about four blocks long with new car dealers on both sides of the street. One side of the street is in the City of San Jose and the other side of the street is in the City of Santa Clara.
Quote:
Originally Posted by John V.
Found more information.
Ted Stevens Pontiac was notified by a PMD letter dated March 18, 1987 that a new Pontiac dealership at 750 W. Capitol Expy in San Jose had been awarded. In April, Ted Stevens Pontiac filed a protest with the Calif New Vehicle Board.
The case proceedings state that Ted Stevens established his Pontiac dealership in 1968, earlier than I had guessed. He also took on GMC trucks in 1968 and operated as a dual franchise.
It does not say where the dealership was located in 1968 but does note that it is operating at 620 Blossom Hill Rd. on a 2.9 acre lot in Los Gatos and the structure thereon was then 24 years old (so apparently a building erected in 1963).
So it appears that Bill Stuart Pontiac likely built the new dealership building on Blossom Hill around 1963 (also earlier than I had guessed), moving his dealership from the old S. Santa Cruz Ave. location about 5 years before selling the biz to Ted Stevens.
Ted Stevens Pontiac argued that a new Pontiac dealer in San Jose would harm his biz.
The new San Jose dealership was to be owned by Cerritos Management Group which already owned a number of other foreign make dealerships plus Chevy and Olds.
The facts presented to the Board were very unflattering to Stevens Pontiac, including Consumer satisfaction rankings and per unit profit being much higher that other Pontiac dealers. The Board ruled that Stevens Pontiac failed to make its case and PMD was allowed to establish the new franchise.
As previously noted, Ted Stevens proceeded to close the Pontiac dealership at the end of 1987.
I could not resolve the 620 vs. 625 address conflict but it was not uncommon for a dealer to have a delivery lot that differed from the office address. My guess is that the office was located at 620 Blossom Hill and deliveries were made across the street at 625 Blossom Hill. Perhaps he displayed his inventory on that lot, else it could have been a used car lot, or maybe even just an easy place to off load the cars.
I believe Ted Stevens operated an Acura dealership for a time at the 620 location after the demise of his Pontiac franchise. He had another court case with unions filing a grievance that his union agreements previously entered into were not honored when he switched to Acura.
More recently, Los Gatos Luxury Cars (Lamborghini, Bentley, Acura) occupied the old facilities. In 2014, they announced plans to demolish the old showroom and facilities and replace it with a modern facility about quadruple the size. It appears that Los Gatos Luxury Cars is still at the 620 Blossom Hill address but in new buildings.
It looks like the 625 Blossom Hill address has condo buildings on it now.
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