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SEARCHThe Kia store went to a growing automotive group led by a Time Dealer of the Year as its former owner focuses on Albuquerque.
Bob Giles, chairman, Giles Automotive, George Pero, president and CEO, Mach10 Automotive, and Bob Pitre, president, Pitre Automotive Group
Samantha Splane
An automotive group led by a one-time Time Dealer of the Year has picked up its first Kia dealership as part of a growth push.
Giles Automotive acquired Pitre Kia in Las Cruces, N.M., from Pitre Automotive Group, which had owned the store since 2017.
The deal, brokered for the buyer and seller by Mach10 Automotive, grows the Giles group to nine dealerships across California, Louisiana, New Mexico and Texas.
The auto group’s chairman, Bob Giles, was named Time Dealer of the Year, a prestigious auto retail award, in 2022. Giles Automotive has grown from one dealership opened in 1982.
“Kia had been a strategic target brand for our group” and fits with the group’s long-term plan, said Giles, who renamed his new store Giles Kia.
Pitre Automotive principal Bob Pitre, a second-generation dealer, decided to pull out of the southern New Mexico market, freeing it to focus on Albuquerque, where it operates a Buick GMC store and another Kia dealership. The group has been in the auto retail business since the 1970s.
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