Recently I caught up with Ed Nicol, who is the new general manager for Gateway Hyundai off I-95 in Chester. The dealership is part of the Carter Myers Automotive Group, and until January Nicol was the general sales manager for Colonial Honda, also part of Carter Myers. He is settling nicely into his new role, and during our interview he and I discussed his plans for growing the business at Gateway Hyundai.
Q. We always like to start with your first car.
A. Mine was a 1974 Plymouth Duster. It was a two-door coupe from back in the day and had a 360 V8. I got it when I was just about to turn 17, for $1,400 cash. The four-speed manual transmission is about the only thing I remember. I'd never driven a stick and my father told me I was an idiot to buy it, but I told him I'd spent every penny I had, so I'd figure out how to drive it.
Q. How did you get into the auto business?
A. I'm originally from upstate New York and came to Virginia to get away from the cold and the snow. The car business was kind of a whim. I'd had a small landscaping business of my own, and it was doing OK, but nothing extraordinary. I happened to see a newspaper ad for car sales. I'd always liked cars, and it was right before the kickoff to the busy season in my business. I thought, "I've always liked this, why don't I try it?" If it didn't work out, I could get back into my business when it picked up in the spring. It worked out and I've been doing it 18 years now.
Q. You recently became the new general manager for Gateway Hyundai. How is that going?
A. I was at Colonial Honda for the past four years and recently walked across the parking lot to Gateway Hyundai. We just had our best sales January in the store's history. Service and parts both set all-time records, so we're off to a good start this year. Business definitely seems to be rebounding from the last couple of years. Our goal for 2011 is in the area of a 50 percent increase in sales. It's going to be a very aggressive year for us.
Obviously the biggest change was going from Honda to Hyundai. Hyundai is a very popular brand, and there's a lot of new vehicles. The Sonata, the Elantra and the Tucson are very, very popular right now. And of course the Equus is just getting started. It's funny, you get a $60,000 car from Hyundai, and people were a bit skeptical. The salespeople were curious to know if they could sell it at all, and now they're asking for more. It's a beautiful car.
Q. So why choose Gateway Hyundai?
A. One thing that makes our store special is our location is good on I-95. Some of the other locations might be close by, but they get so much traffic they're hard to get to. Starting from almost anywhere in Richmond, you can be here in half an hour. Gateway started seven or eight years ago as a small store in Petersburg, and we moved to this new location about three years ago, so we've got this brand new, beautiful, class-leading facility. We're working to combine the small-town, everybody-knows-everybody feel that we came from with the increased inventory that comes with a large store. The best of both worlds, so to speak.
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