The auto landscape in Columbus is changing as the car dealer owner who brought back the Chevrolet brand to the city now prepares for grand openings for new Ford and Nissan outlets.
Leo Portaluppi, who arrived in Columbus in 2014 along with General Motors’ multimillion-dollar investment in Chevrolet of Columbus, is preparing to celebrate official openings of Ford of Columbus and Nissan of Columbus. Both dealerships are open, with Ford planning a tentative grand opening on March 26, and Nissan’s soft opening now to be followed with its grand opening in late March or in April.
The two new dealerships are located on U.S. 31 north, where Portaluppi initially started Chevrolet of Columbus, before moving to a brand new site and state-of-the-art building on Columbus’ west side, near I-65.
“We’ve come full-circle,” Portaluppi said, smiling as he walked through the familiar building which has been extensively updated for the Ford dealership. “We’re back six years later.”
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Portaluppi found success in Columbus bringing back Chevrolet, which hadn’t had a presence in Columbus since 2012 when Wiese GM Center and General Motors parted ways.
He began his automotive career at age 18 cleaning the floors in a Texas car dealership, running parts to technicians and learning the ropes at the ground level.
When Chevrolet chose him for the new Columbus dealership, he moved his family to Columbus, bringing his office manager and sales manager for a dealership he had with a partner in Owensboro, Kentucky for the previous seven years.
“I was starting with nothing,” he said of the move to Columbus. “No employees, no equipment. The other day I had to go out and buy a stapler,” he said in 2014.
Portaluppi said then that he was investing everything he had in the new dealership. “There is no Plan B. This is my first dealership on my own.”
A protege of Roger Penske, Portaluppi worked his way up at a Houston area dealership owned by Penske Automotive Group. Portaluppi said in an earlier interview that Penske became a role model for professionalism and integrity that he wanted to emulate.
From Penske, Portaluppi learned about the importance of image, cleanliness and attention to detail. Penske also ingrained ethical behavior and integrity into everything he did, and everything his employees did, something Portaluppi said he also embraced.
The opening of the two new locations brings Portaluppi’s stable of dealerships to four, three in Columbus, and a Nissan dealership in Lafayette.
When it came to deciding where to place the Ford and Nissan expansions, Portaluppi said he didn’t hesitate to add the “of Columbus” to their names and locate them in the city where he started with his first dealership.
“We’ve done really well with Chevrolet of Columbus, even outside of Columbus, pulling people from other areas — Indy and Louisville — and around the nation, who find us online,” Portaluppi said. “We actually have customers all over the country.”
Describing his marketing efforts as 80 percent digital, much of it on social media, he explained that customers are drawn to the dealership’s policy of having a non-commission sales staff and “vulture-free” zone attitude when purchasing a vehicle.
He has a strong friendship and business relationship with former Columbus mayor Fred Armstrong, who handles his community relations and has taken a starring role in some of the dealerships’ funny videos which are really commercials.
With the different sales model, customers find it easier to work with his dealerships and to understand pricing and options, he said.
“It used to be that customers would visit four or five dealerships and compare vehicles and prices,” Portaluppi said. “Now we know that’s less than two. Most people are doing their research online. People know what they want and know how to find it online.”
That online reach for the dealerships has even extended internationally, with a customer in Germany finding the Portaluppi dealership online and working out the logistics of shipping the car.
“It’s important for us to stay in Columbus,” Portaluppi said of the new four-dealership company, which is being rebranded as Columbus Auto Group, Chevy, Ford and Nissan. As a corporate name, the grouping is the P-4 Automotive Group.
The four dealerships will have a combined 150 employees, but Columbus will continue to be home-base for all of them, with centralized business offices locally.
Portaluppi said even as he considers other dealership opportunities outside of Columbus, the business will continue to be headquartered in Columbus.
“Our name has Columbus in it and we want to continue to do a lot in the community,” he said. “Now we are able to do more.”
Chevrolet of Columbus has been a staunch supporter of YES Cinema, an outreach of the Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family Center, Columbus Philharmonic, local parks and recreation programs and Foundation for Youth in Columbus.
Looking back on the past six years, and with the new expansion with the two dealerships, Portaluppi said he can’t believe it has been six years, and his expansion is starting where Chevrolet of Columbus began in 2014.
“The future for us in Columbus — we want to work with people so they don’t have to go anywhere else to buy a vehicle,” Portaluppi said. “You can stay local and get a good deal and good service and our team will be easy to do business with.”
Among the amenities the dealership is considering is adding more loaner cars to be offered to customers when their car is being serviced and instituting an all-day long shuttle service in which a customer’s car would be picked up and dropped off for service by the dealership.
“It’s a relationship,” Portaluppi said of what he wants to see happening between potential customers and the dealership. “We want that relationship with the customer for life.”
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December 1948 — A World War II veteran and sales representative of what is now Cummins, Inc., Robert W. Mahan (1915-1993) opens Columbus Lincoln-Mercury Co. at the intersection of National Road and Central Avenue.
1948-1957 — Mahan has a number of temporary partners that include C.B. Briscoe, Ralph Fraker, Paul Mendenhall and Leon Cavender.
1958 — Mahan becomes the sole owner of Mahan Ford Sales Inc. when the business became exclusively a Ford dealership.
1966 — More than $300,000 in renovations to the service and parts facility are undertaken following a fire in April.
1975 — To address the energy crisis, Mahan Ford Sales, Inc., begins to offer more gas-efficient Hondas in Columbus.
1982 — Mahan took in two partners, competitor Harold Voelz (1924-1998) and long-time Mahan Ford employee Keith Renner (1929-2014).
1986 — When Keith Renner became principal stockholder, he named his daughter, Lisa Renner, as vice-president of Renner Motors.
1998 — With a dozen years of administrative experience, Lisa Renner took control of Renner Motors.
2017 — The Ford dealership was moved to 3040 N. National Road, while the Honda dealership – still at the corner of National Road and Central Avenue, was sold to the Hubler Automotive group of Indianapolis.
Dec. 28, 2018 – Lisa Renner finalizes the sale of the Ford dealership to the P-4 Automotive Group.
March 26, 2020 – P-4 Automotive Group plans grand opening for Ford of Columbus.
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Age: 42
Background: Started in the automotive business in 1996 when he was 18, working at a dealership in Texas cleaning floors and running parts to technicians
Family: Married, three children
Previous jobs:
- Managing partner of Steve Jones Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram in Owensboro, Kentucky, October 2007 to June 2014.
- Worked in fixed operations for Penske Automotive Group in Houston, April 1996 to October 2007.
What he drives: Chevy Tahoe
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