Chevrolet Dealership Makes Reappearance in Auto Mall

The Silver Star Auto Group is bringing back the Chevrolet brand to the Thousand Oaks Auto Mall The new dealership is expected to open in the next 30 days and will become the fifteenth franchise operated by Silver Star at the auto mall. Silver Star already sells all other General Motors brands at its other dealerships and adding Chevrolet to the mix was natural, said Susan Murata, vice president of Silver Star. “There are a lot of Chevrolet customers anxious to have a dealership back in Thousand Oaks,” Murata said. Courtesy Chevrolet had served the Thousand Oaks area for more than 40 years until closing in February, a victim of the recession that had car sales plummeting at dealers all over the country. Courtesy was just one of several dealerships that closed in Ventura County this year. Silver Star will do some direct mail advertising and general advertising to reach out to customers who had gone to Courtesy, Murata said. Silver Star opens the dealership as the improvement is being seen in the auto industry helped in the short-term by the federal “Cash for Clunkers” program over the summer. Through Sept. 30, new car and light truck registrations in the state were at 775,075, a 37 percent drop from the same nine-month period in 2008, according to the California New Car Dealers Association. The association is expecting a slight increase in registrations for the fourth quarter and a more dramatic improvement in 2010. At Silver Star, which sells both domestic and foreign models, no sales records are being set and the company continues in survival mode to ride out the economy, Murata said. “We are doing okay,” Murata added. “We are lucky to have a base of customers that keep coming back.” The former Courtesy property, a 10-acre parcel that was the first dealership in the auto mall, has been purchased by a businessman who used to own dealerships in the San Fernando Valley. His reported plans are to subdivide the property for automotive use, including possibly another dealership of a luxury brand not sold in the auto mall. Once the Courtesy property is in use again that makes the auto mall full and ready for business, said Gary Wartik, economic development manager for Thousand Oaks. “We are very pleased someone owns that property and is spending money rehabbing it as well,” Wartik said.