Carter Myers Auto Group buys Staunton's Rule Auto

Charlottesville-based Carter Myers Auto Group, the owner of Colonial Auto Center and Volvo of Charlottesville, has agreed to purchase Staunton-based Rule Auto Inc., which sells Honda, Volkswagen and recreational vehicles.

The sale should close by the end of the month. Terms were not disclosed.

“The dealerships should be a good fit for us because Rule is a family-owned business and so are we,” said Carter Myers III, president and chief executive officer of Carter Myers Auto Group. “They have a solid customer base in Staunton and are only 35 or 40 minutes away from us.”

The auto group already has a Honda dealership in the Richmond area and Liza Borches, company vice president, worked for American Honda for seven years before taking over the company’s Charlottesville Volvo dealership. Borches is Myers’ daughter.

“We understand Honda very well and we’re looking forward to growing the VW brand in the [Shenandoah] Valley,” Myers said. “VW has sort of ignored this country in the past few years and they’re ready to really make an effort and have some great product with a great price point.”

Borches will supervise the former Rule properties, which will be renamed Valley Honda and Valley Volkswagen. The RV dealership, currently on the Honda dealership property, will likely be relocated.

The properties will have general managers to oversee daily operations, Borches said. Scott Simons, who lives in the Shenandoah Valley and has worked for Honda for a decade, will manage the Honda shop. Shawn Ayers, a Carter Myers Auto Group employee, will move to Staunton to manage the VW dealership.

Myers said the Staunton purchase came about when Rule Auto owner William “Billy” Rule Jr. contacted him late this spring. The automotive families have known each other for years, he said. Rule’s son, William Rule III, ran the dealership after the elder Rule retired. When the younger Rule died in 2008 of cancer, the elder Rule took over daily operations again.

“We had approached [Rule] about buying the dealership should he ever wish to sell and we didn’t hear anything for a long time,” Myers said. “Then we got a phone call in May and entered into negotiations. Mr. Rule wanted to sell the dealership to someone who understood a family-owned business and would take care of his employees and that’s something we understand.”

The Carter Myers Auto Group purchased Charlottesville’s Herb Brown Volvo in 2004 as the Brown family looked for someone who would keep the family atmosphere of the dealership and retain its employees.

“One of the things we want to keep the same in Staunton, as we did with Volvo, is the sense of a family-run business,” Borches said. “It’s important that the dealership remain local and family-oriented. They have a lot of long-term customers over there and the customers are going to see the same folks in the dealership that they are accustomed to, who they are comfortable with. We want to retain that base and then build on it.”

Borches said the company used the same plan when taking over the Volvo dealership.

“We knew we were going to grow the business, to attract not just local customers but expand regionally and to do that we ended up expanding and creating new jobs,” Borches said.

The Staunton dealerships are a perfect fit for the automotive group, Borches said.

“We don’t want to expand too far away. We want to be close to the dealerships so that, if there’s a problem or someone can’t make it in, we’re only a half-hour to hour away,” Borches said.

With the additions of the Staunton stores, Carter Myers Auto Group now includes seven dealerships selling 11 brands. The company operates Colonial Honda, Heritage Chevrolet and Gateway Hyundai in the Richmond area and Colonial Auto Center and Volvo of Charlottesville in Charlottesville.

Colonial Auto Center sells Cadillac, GMC, Mitsubishi, Lincoln, Nissan and Buick. General Motors and Ford Motor Co. have eliminated the dealership’s Pontiac and Mercury lines, respectively.