Ferrari Torrance Dealership??!!!

Well isn't this interesting

I guess that means I won't be opening one here

 

Hmmm , right on my door step. Glad I have a good established client base

 

Exactly, I don't think you should be too worried, Craig.

Who knows maybe they'll peddle more cars in the area that'll just end up back at your shop!

 

Haha, it wouldn't be the first time

 

New Ferrari and Maserati car dealership slated to open in Torrance - ContraCostaTimes.com

Giacomo is opening it. It's a good move for him. It's the only way to get more Maserati sales in the South bay/ PV. It's too far to go to West LA for service for a lot of people and that facility is pretty much used up. Will it increase Ferrari sales? I don't think so. There's still a huge backlog in the allocation in LA. But, he can put more used sales there and that will help.


The new location is not far from South Bay BMW and Martin Chevy. The good news is you can test drive cars down Skypark and the cops are never there. (you didn't hear that from me!)

Hawthorne Blvd has been decimated in the past 4 years with closed stores/ going out of business sales. Still a lot of unused retail space. The new Audi dealer there was a welcome sign of a turn around. This will help but Hawthorne BLVD still has a way to go before it can look like before the great recession.

 

I am wishfully optimistic that they do well, but still I wonder if there's a market in the South Bay for "an annual factory allocation of 50 Ferrari automobiles." That's a whole lot of new Ferraris that they at least expect to have hitting the streets.

As you say, Mayor...great way to pick up on Maser sales/service around here--plenty of Benz, BMW, and Porsche to compete with. Also, yes, very good news for the Hawthorne stretch--"decimated" is a very appropriate description.

We have an interesting commercial and socio-economic demographic in our LA micro-culture and not as much flash as the Westside or OC. I've often wondered how an authorized dealer would do around here; we'll find out soon. Geographically, it certainly fills the void between the other three. Hopefully they'll be planting a seed for a new Tifosi culture.

Exciting news...Welcome to the neighborhood!

 

Right next to PV where I grew up.
Can't wait to see this place.

 

Who is openning it? The guy who owns Martin...giocomoni? That's a fail right there. Hawthorne Blvd. is fine. What has happened is useless stores who's names I can't remember are gone. Places around walteria are empty. But who shops in walteria? PV people drive "through" walteria to somewhere else. There are like 3 large commercial developments with in 5 miles off PV into Torrance on Hawthorne which is what is needed on HB to facelift and modernize. There is a fourth additional really big development bogged down in impact studies etc. What happened on HB is just a flushing of the toilet.
There is money in the southbay lots of it. What the recession has shown is that the southbay/PV is not fly by night. They had money before the recession and still had money during and after it. My business is in Torrance and felt no recession as an example. HB is plugged with traffic. If no more stores open on HB that would be fine by me. make any empty retail green space. Interestingly, Tiffany's is coming here too.

 

Nice! Strange location for it though. Not much else near there except a Chevy dealer or something along those lines. (it's not that close to the BMW dealership, that's probably 2-3 miles up Hawthorne).

 

Funny thing is I don't know how that chevy dealer or that BMW dealer stay in business. No one I know ever admits to shopping at either. All complain about their customer service and repairshop aggressiveness. I never see a new car paper plate with either name on them either, always from elsewhere. Also, not so strange. There is lots of money here. The question is it the right kind of money?

 

From the link
"The Ferrari dealership, unanimously approved Wednesday by the city Planning Commission, will sit on a 28,600-square-foot lot now occupied by the Loft Hawaiian restaurant near the Lomita Boulevard intersection opposite Del Amo Fashion Center"

New Ferrari and Maserati car dealership slated to open in Torrance - The Daily Breeze

 

When you come and visit and can stop and say hello to me as i am right next door

 

More Car stores=more cars=more fun

 

Nope, not Joe Giacomin of Martin--from the article... "The new luxury car dealership is owned by Giacomo Mattioli, who also owns Ferrari Maserati Beverly Hills and is president of Ferrari Maserati Silicon Valley." A tad bit more Ferrari background...but how well they know the South Bay market is the question.


Your question about being the "right kind of money"...that's kind of what I was getting at in my post earlier.

 

Dude... it's the same guy who owns Ferrari BH and Silicon Valley.

Read... and chill. I've worked with F of BH for over 12 years and they are good people. I'm happy the South Bay is getting this facility. A lot of people in PV would like to own an F car or M car but don't want to drag it all the way to West LA for warranty service.

When I had my Maserati shop in Torrance in the 80's, I had a ton of business from PV. But, the Jag dealer on PCH was a Maser dealer so they sold a lot of cars and we were factory authorized warranty repair. In fact, we did more service than the dealer did because he couldn't handle it.

Those were the days...

What's interesting is the guys who own South Bay BMW/Mini used their old facility on Sepulveda just north of Artesia to first open a Lotus dealership (it failed) and then sold used exotics (mainly F and M cars) and it failed. That showroom and lot have been vacant for maybe a year. So, let's see if they can pull it off with an authorized dealer in the area.

 

Thatnk God it's not the Chevy guys - what a bounch of morons! They don't understand sales at all. They had a 348 in there a few years back in the show room and not one person could tell me a thing about it. Their idea of selling new cars is to just name their price and wait for someone to come along and pay it. They don't deal on anything.

SoBay BMW is similar. They have a good rep in the BMW community, but I personally don't know how they get it. My experiences there have never been good, except for the parts counter where the guys are superior. This is the last dealership where i would buy a car and I live minutes from them.

I am happy about Ferrari coming to the SoBay but it may very well have to do with Porsche's plans to build their track and show facility in Carson, nearby. For now most people I know buy their Ferraris down in OC. I don't know of anyone who goes to Beverly Hills. To me, that dealership is jaded. For that level of service I'd just as soon go to our sponser Fastcars.

 

"It's also in keeping with the city's pretensions of attracting more upscale retailers and restaurants to the midmarket retail district. Recent openings and planned additions include a Wal-Mart grocery store and a new location of a chain that sells inexpensive suits, for instance."

Upscale retailers like Walmart and a cheap suit store? Ferrari should stand out like a sore thumb. :/

 

I am really surprised they are putting one down here because it seems like very few people in PV buy new Ferraris. They all have classic ones. For example last Sunday I saw a 365 GT, 308 GTS, Testarossa, 348 Spider, Daytona, and a 360 Spider. The newest one I saw was 10 years old but in Beverly Hills/ Newport it is nothing but F430s and 458s all day long. Redondo doesn't really have that many Ferraris either. I guess they are trying to change that.

 

i was thinking about the same think with the Porsche track. Maybe there is a deal in the works which lends validity to both. And that is why Eric and I said the right kind of money. Beach people especially want to look good for cheap. Lots of marginal buyers buy junk Ferraris etc. cheap from beach cities car lots. It's a Ferrari and they look good. Those cars get passed around fixed cheaply you get my drift. Not all Ferraris around here are like that but a decent number of them. And yes tiffanys is coming to this weird location. What many retailers never understand is the mindset of PV. First thing my wife said was she would still go to south coast plaza for tiffanys. If you are not from PV you just don't get it.

 

Yep, I don't have any knowledge of how it went down...but one of the first things that came to mind was Saks at the Avenue as an example. We just don't have the density and metro/touristy attraction. And you don't see the spending and flash of big money. Perhaps moving a small volume of big money cars won't be as difficult as supporting a whole dept store. There are some great cars around here tucked in the nooks and crannies, so they're here.

I haven't heard much about the Porsche track lately...any of you guys have any news. Would be awesome to get some dealer backed Ferrari days out there and bring out the Tifosi and some noisy cars.

 

Most of the Ferrari owners down here at the beach try to keep you PV people from knowing they have them. That's why we promote our "cheap" image. The criminal element up there, you know.