Sales of super luxury vehicles show no signs of slowing down.
The popularity of the segment has also prompted a major expansion for Grand Touring Automobiles in Toronto, Ontario. GTA has moved into a stunning, new facility — a 141,000-square-foot, five-floor dealership that’s home to exclusive brands such as Aston Martin, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, Jaguar and Land Rover.
With an inventory of approximately $50 million dollars, it’s the first multi-brand super luxury dealership in Canada — with seven brands all under one roof. A common model in the US, it’s the first one in the country.
“We are breaking the mould,” said company principal Paul Cummings at the packed official grand opening ceremony on May 31, 2018. “There’s a few in the States, but nothing in Canada.”
“I’ll be honest it’s no different that somebody doing a renovation for a home. Your biggest fear is you got something wrong. You didn’t think through it. We learned from others like the collection in Miami and other multi-brand large facilities, which are largely in the States because of the sheer volume. We went to visit all of them to figure out what would work. We also went to facilities that had multi-levels. We spent a good year-and-a-half traveling and visiting stores. One thing about dealers they will talk about dealerships. They were fantastic. We gathered as much intelligence as possible — even from Mercedes across the street and Downtown Porsche. We took as much as we could to incorporate into this build,” said Cummings.
And that’s not all. It took five years of planning, two-and-half years of construction, and the hardest part, according to Cummings: “getting seven manufacturers to play nice together” — that was a delicate balancing act.
“To be fair, they were fantastic through the whole process. But the challenge was they were evolving as well. When I bought this is 2009 there was one Rolls Royce — it was the Phantom. There was a DBS from Aston Martin. We didn’t have Lamborghini or Bugatti at the time. They all had one product so it was a one-car showroom. They had their product plans that were coming, but they didn’t want to share too much. They want to keep it a secret. We had to plan for the long-term with a 5-year business plan. We had to make sure we had a facility that could handle the growth and the technology and the number of cars in the marketplace,” he said.
Much of the growth is owed to the success and rise in popularity of ultra-luxury SUVS such as the Bentley Bentayga, the Rolls Royce Cullinan, the Lamborghini Urus, and a new Aston Martin SUV coming to the dealership in 2020.
Executives including Pedro Mota, President of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas, Mark Del Rosso, President and CEO, Bentley Motors Inc., Alessandro Farmeschi, CEO Americas Region, Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A, Maurizio Parlato, COO of Bugatti of Americas, and Laura Schwab, President, Aston Martin for The Americas — flew to Toronto to join the celebrations and were dazzled by the facility.
“I love the car business. I love that we’re here with this amazing dealer partner opening up this gorgeous facility. I’m looking at the most incredible view of Toronto, which is one of my favorite cities in the world,” said Schwab, who came in from California.
Nationally, the luxury segment of the auto market has grown more than seven per cent over the past three years. In that same period, sales of super luxury models at GTA increased a whopping 48 per cent. And Cummings anticipates double the annual sales volume by
the end of 2019. The new dealership is located at 777 Dundas St. E., overlooking Toronto’s Don Valley Parkway, in Toronto.
