Four dealership groups or partners purchased dealerships in the third and fourth quarters in Colorado, Utah, Texas and New Jersey in separate transactions. Two of the deals involved standalone Jeep stores.

Here’s a look at the deals involving domestic, import and luxury stores.

Standalone Jeep store addition

Fowler Holding Co. of Norman, Okla., the parent company of Fowler Automotive Group, has added its ninth dealership — a rare standalone Jeep store.

Fowler on Oct. 1 bought Pollard Jeep of Boulder in Colorado from Doug Pollard of Pollard Friendly Motor Co.

The dealership has been renamed Fowler Jeep of Boulder.

“After living in Boulder briefly 20 years ago, I have always known this is a community I wanted to represent,” Jonathan Fowler, president of Fowler Holding, said in an email to Automotive News. “To have the chance to do that with an iconic American and Colorado brand like Jeep was a match made in Rocky Mountain heaven.”

Pollard Jeep was established in 1969, and Doug Pollard was a second-generation owner. On Jan. 1, there were just 15 standalone Jeep dealerships in the U.S., according to Automotive News‘ annual dealership census.

Fowler has eight other dealerships in Oklahoma and Colorado.

Hugh Morris of Dealer Support Network represented the buyer in the transaction.

Young Automotive Group of Layton, Utah, has added three dealerships in its headquarters city.

The group on July 30 bought Layton Hills Chrysler-Dodge-Ram, the standalone Utah Jeep Store and Audi Layton-Cutrubus Volkswagen of Layton from Homer Cutrubus and the Cutrubus family. Layton is north of Salt Lake City.

The stores were renamed Young Chrysler-Dodge-Ram, Young Jeep and Young Volkswagen of Layton-Audi Layton.

Oliver Young, the Young group’s operations director, told Automotive News that the company is excited to add another Stellantis store and new brands Volkswagen and Audi. Young said that is its second luxury store following Genesis. The acquisition also included a body shop.

“Since 2008, we’ve been diversifying our portfolio to make sure we have a diverse group of manufacturers,” he said. “In 2008, we only had GM and Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram, and that was a rough time.”

Young Automotive said it now has 18 dealerships in Utah and Idaho, six powersports stores and one medium-duty truck and trailer outlet.

The Cutrubus family, through arbitration, won the right to reopen its Layton Chrysler store after that dealership and another the family owned were among hundreds rejected across the country as part of then-Chrysler’s 2009 bankruptcy.

The Cutrubus family still owns a Kia dealership in Ogden, Utah, Young said.

Performance Brokerage Services, an Irvine, Calif., buy-sell firm, handled the transaction.

The owners of a Ford dealership in Boerne, Texas, and a Chevrolet-Buick-GMC store in Fredericksburg, Texas, have purchased two more Ford dealerships in the Lone Star State.

Martin Dinh, Roland Smith and Melissa Smith of El Toro Auto Group in Boerne bought Kinsel Ford Pleasanton and Kinsel Ford Three Rivers from Bob Kinsel and the Kinsel family. The transaction closed Oct. 4.

Fredericksburg and Boerne are north of San Antonio, while Pleasanton and Three Rivers are south of the city.

The dealerships were renamed Ford of Pleasanton and Three Rivers Ford, said Dinh, COO of the El Toro group.

Dinh said the Kinsels’ stores have a long history, with the Pleasanton location just celebrating its 50th anniversary. He said the groups are both family owned and operated and “our values line up very well.”

“With Ford being such a great brand and the products they have, we just wanted to align our future with Ford,” Dinh said.

Performance Brokerage Services handled the transaction.

Frank Tackett and Frank Esposito have purchased a Ford dealership in New Jersey.

The duo on Aug. 4 bought Bell Ford in Woodbridge Township from Maryann Chuhinko. Her husband, Mark Chuhinko, who died in 2018, had owned the store after buying it from his father, according to Mark Chuhinko’s obituary.

The dealership was renamed Woodbridge Ford. Tackett and Esposito own several dealerships together, said Dan Murphy of D.T. Murphy & Co. in Glen Ridge, N.J., who was the broker in the transaction.

Tackett and Esposito in August sold a Subaru dealership in Hackettstown, N.J., to World Auto Group.