Spokane Motor Cars Inc., a recently formed company, has bought the assets of both the Jaguar Land Rover Spokane and Lithia Volvo dealerships here.


Jan Richardson, owner of Spokane Motor Cars, says the new company has leased the established Jaguar Land Rover dealership buildings in downtown Spokane. Also, the new company has moved the Volvo operation there from the Lithia Camp Automotive Inc. campus, at 215 E. Montgomery, on Spokanes North Side.


J&L Holdings Inc., the Bellevue, Wash.-based company that previously owned the Jaguar Land Rover dealership here, couldnt be reached for comment on the dealership transaction. A spokesman at Lithia Corp.s corporate headquarters in Medford, Ore., declined comment on the transaction.


The new multi-make dealership now operates as Spokane Jaguar-Land Rover-Volvo, says Richardson, who declines to disclose the terms of the asset purchases.


The Jaguar, Land Rover, and Volvo lines all are part of Ford Motor Co.s premier automotive group.


This is one of the first (dealerships) in the country to have these three brands at one store facility, Richardson says. The big benefit is that you have three premium brands, and all of the expertise and technical know-how can be used across the breadth of the product lines.


Richardson has worked in the automotive sales industry for six years and mostly recently was general manager at a Jaguar dealership in Plano, Texas, which is a suburb of Dallas. She had been in whats called the Ford Dealer Development Program and had been made aware of the purchase opportunities in Spokane through that program.


Spokane Jaguar-Land Rover-Volvo occupies two buildings with a total of 40,000 square feet of floor space in the automotive sales district just southwest of downtown. The showroom and sales department are located in a building at 1310 W. Third, and the service department is in a building just north of that structure, at the southwest corner of Second Avenue and Adams Street.


Richardson says the company plans to convert about 3,000 square feet of floor space in the service building on Second into a Volvo showroom with window displays that will be visible from both Second and Adams. That remodeling work could get started later this month, but the company doesnt have a cost estimate on the project yet, she says.


The overall dealership currently employs 14 people and might add staff members as sales volume increases, she says.


Spokane Jaguar-Land Rover-Volvo, which is the only dealership to carry any of those makes in the Spokane area, has set goals for its first year of doubling the number of sales made here last year by the three dealerships before they were combined, as well as boosting their parts and service revenues, Richardson says. Also, she says, the company wants to improve its ratio of new car-to-used car sales.


Combined, Richardson says, Lithia Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover Spokane sold about 150 new and used cars in 2003. Of those, she says, only about a third were new cars. This year, the new dealership hopes to sell a total of 300 cars of those three makes, with at least half of those being new vehicles.


The company also plans to raise its profile in the community and to encourage its employees to be involved in the community, and thereby generate more interest in the business, Richardson says.


Both of the stores had been remotely owned before, she says. Im making Spokane my home. Were going to be taking a different tack on what we do.