Lebanon
The deal was completed on Tuesday, Key Auto said in a news release, and the dealership on Route 120 near the intersection with Etna Road now is operating under the name Key Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram of Lebanon.
Key Auto Group owns and operates 12 dealerships in New England. The Portsmouth dealer also currently is building a new $4.8 million Chevrolet dealership on Sykes Mountain Avenue in White River Junction, which is expected to open this spring.
The sale marks the continuing retrenchment of Miller Auto Group, which got its start as a car dealer in the early 20th century when it ran a Cadillac franchise in White River Junction. Until a few years ago, it had five dealerships in Lebanon. Miller Auto shed its Nissan dealership in 2012 and closed its Chevrolet and Cadillac dealership in 2015. The former dealership now is the site of the new Dartmouth Coach bus terminal.
Miller Auto, owned by Johanna Cicotte, now has only one dealership remaining — the Volvo and Volkswagen dealership on Route 120 near Exit 18 on Interstate 89.
Cicotte did not return messages seeking comment.
Dan LaGrange, the new general manager at Key Chrysler, said the dealership currently employs 25 people, including five mechanics and three salespeople, and will be looking to add more.
“We’ll be hiring and growing. We need more staffing,” he said.
Miller Auto had been selling between 40 to 50 vehicles a month from the Chrysler lot, LaGrange said, but Key Auto expects “to double the volume by really getting out there and showing people how we do business.”
LaGrange, who previously was the general manager at Key Buick GMC in Somersworth, N.H., said for the past three weeks he has been dropping in at restaurants such as Mickey’s Cafe in Enfield and Lui Lui in West Lebanon, surveying customers about the dealership and asking how Key Auto might serve the community.
“I want to get out there and make a difference,” he said.
Miller Auto’s Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram dealership is the sixth dealership in Lebanon, Hartford or Claremont to be sold in about a three-year span as longtime family owners retire and sell out to regional groups.
The trend began in early 2016, when Rick MacLeay sold The Car Store Subaru franchise in Norwich to Massachusetts-based Prime Subaru, which recently relocated the dealership to a new $4 million facility along Sykes Mountain Avenue in White River Junction. Later that year, Kurt Gerrish sold Gerrish Honda in Lebanon to Gengras Motor Cars of Connecticut, which also plans to move the dealership across the river into a new $5.3 million facility on Sykes Mountain Avenue.
Then, in 2017, MacLeay emerged as the new owner of White River Hyundai, which he acquired from co-owners and brothers Charlie and Allen Hall (who still own Gateway Motors). Later that year, Tom Thayer sold Flanders and Patch Ford in Lebanon to St. J Auto of St. Johnsbury, Vt., and brothers Rob and Rick Devalk sold their Howe Motors’ Claremont Toyota dealership to The McGee Family of Dealerships in Massachusetts.
Finally, in 2018, Peter Mans, who operated Subaru of Claremont for 22 years, sold the dealership to Concord auto dealer Dan O’Brien.
Even though Key Auto is building its new Chevrolet dealership along Sykes Mountain Avenue — now the hub of auto dealerships in the Upper Valley auto market with four already located within a half-mile of one another and two more in the works — LaGrange said the Chrysler dealership will remain where it is.
“We don’t plan on uplifting and getting out of Lebanon,” LaGrange said. “We plan on growing some roots right here.”
John Lippman can be reached at jlippman@vnews.com or 603-727-3219.
