There must be an interesting story here.
I've lived in So Cal since the 60s, and been involved in one way or another in the auto biz for a lot of that.
I was very, very surprised when Euromasters first opened, 4-5 years ago, right off the 405 in Fountain Valley.
They are an independent reseller/consignment seller of mostly aircooled Porsches. They also had a repair shop, and I think did some restorations.
What surprised me was the incredible scale of their facility. This is/was a HUGE facility. For a non-franchise car dealer, really unprecedented. And, in a fairly prime location visible from the 405 freeway. I'm not good at estimating size, but the entire facility must have been 50,000+ square feet.
I was also surprised that this would be opened right after the financial collapse in the US, and the recession.
I went in there a few times out of curiosity, and that made me even more surprised. There was so much empty space. Giant empty banquet rooms, etc. I was also surprised by how much $$$$ went into the place. The tenant improvements (I assume they were leasing) were tremendous. It must have cost well into the 6 figures, or even 7, to set that place up.
They took out a fairly big ad in our local PCA monthly, I think hosted some events.
Frankly, I couldn't see how they could even come close to generate the revenue needed to run a monster like that, by selling used/consignment Porsches. There just isn't a huge margin in them.
Yes, they did some repair and restoration, too, but that's a tough biz, too.
I figured maybe it was some rich guy's folly? Or someone who was really, really good at convincing investors?
Being my cynical self, every time I drove by it on the freeway, I was waiting for it to be shut down, I'd look as I zoomed by. But, year after year, though 2008, 09, 10, I kept seeing cars parked out front. It amazed me, b/c to my biz mind, they just had to be bleeding money every month.
The last couple weeks I've driven by on the freeway, there's never any cars out front and it looks dark inside.
Anyone know the story? It has to be interesting!