Another Torrance Setback--Maserati Drives Off the City Lot

The Maserati dealership was supposed to ensure a growing tax revenue base for the city of Torrance.

Torrance was supposed to use this glamor item to gentrify the city's standing, too.

Not only that, but Mayor Pat Furey staked some of his political capital on this dealership.

The dream has died, as the dealership has dealt its last hand.

Check out what the Daily Breeze had to report:

Torrance Maserati dealer closes its doors before marking 2-yearanniversary

A Torrance Maserati dealership that opened its doors in 2015 with high hopes that it could be one of the nation’s top sellers of the luxury Italian automobiles closed its doors for the final time Friday.

The dealership was an apparent victim of low sales caused by mismanagement, according to a former employee who requested anonymity.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” the former employee said. “It was a complete disaster. Management was poor and customers were being scared away. Salesmen were so unhappy.”

Customers were scared away? How?

General Manager Drew Polenchar didn’t return several calls seeking comment, and neither did management at the Pasadena headquarters of Rusnak Auto Group, which owns the dealership and others scattered around Southern California

Hopes were high for the dealership — the only Maserati showroom in the South Bay — when it opened in December 2015.

A Ferrari dealership a short distance away had opened the previous January and the addition of another luxury brand to the collection of automobile dealerships lining Hawthorne Boulevard seemed to suggest that Torrance and the South Bay were shedding its stolid middle-class reputation.

"Stolid middle class reputation"--another example of the elitist bias in the paper. Did I forget to mention that Nick Green wrote this?

How is that Ferrari dealership doing, anyway?

“This store will be one of the, if not the largest Maserati dealerships in the country,” the former general manager boasted to the Daily Breeze when the dealership opened.

That never happened.

Rusnak is believed to have spent $6 million to $7 million building the state-of-the-art, 28,000-square-foot dealership, but had problems from the outset.

“They weren’t really selling huge numbers,” the former worker said. “They weren’t really selling many Maseratis. They were selling used cars over the Internet.”

Hmm. Perhaps instead of mocking and trying to change the middle-class veneer of Torrance, prospective businesses should respect the hometown feel of the city.

And the largely high-end used cars — on Friday the dealership had a 2014 Rolls Royce sitting in its shiny, but largely empty showroom — often were returned once customers had their own mechanic evaluate them, he said.

Middle-income earners tend to take those necessary steps to ensure that they are making a wise purchase.

Reviews of Yelp seemed to confirm some of the management issues.

While the dealership had plenty of positive reviews, there were a surprisingly large number of savagely negative ones for a high-end dealership where deep-pocketed customers are accustomed to receiving high-quality sales and service.

“Worst experience ever,” wrote one reviewer; while another predicted: “This service center will not probably last in the long run.”

Wow!

Final Reflection

Businesses should not emerge in any new market with an attitude toward forcing a change of test. Any emerging market should take steps to respect and reflect the tastes of the prospective clientele.

That's a lesson which businesses can learn--but which liberal Democrats never learn.