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1977 — present · founded in South Bend; Mishawaka from 1984
The founding: The Gurley Leep group was founded in 1977 — on 7 October, by the arithmetic of the South Bend Tribune's account of its fiftieth-anniversary year — with a Buick franchise in downtown South Bend, by Mike Leep Sr. and Van Gurley. (A founding year of 1973 circulates in aggregator boilerplate; the house's own account and the Tribune agree on 1977, and the 1973 figure belongs to the years just before the founding, when Leep acquired the Highland Dodge store in 1974, having begun as a salesman there in 1967.) The group is a South Bend foundation that became a Mishawaka house: its relationship with Mishawaka dates to 1984, when it partnered with the city to invest in the Grape Road corridor, and its headquarters stands on Grape Road today — the second of this section's two great migrations, and the one that carried the trade from the avenue ground to the corridor.
The group at record size: The makes the group added on its own published account include Hyundai in 1999 and Subaru in 2003. It is led today by Mike Leep Jr. and James Leep, the founder's sons, in the public roles the record names.
The house, in one line: Founded in 1977 by Mike Leep Sr. and Van Gurley with a Buick franchise in downtown South Bend; Mishawaka's own from 1984, when it partnered with the city in the Grape Road corridor; headquartered on Grape Road under the founder's sons, its eleven-brand campus rising at Capital Avenue and Cleveland Road as this history is written.
Sources:
- Gurley Leep Automotive, the house's own history (dealer-site account) — the 1977 founding with a Buick franchise in downtown South Bend by Mike Leep Sr. and Van Gurley; Leep's start as a Highland Dodge salesman in 1967 and his acquisition of that store in 1974; the Mishawaka partnership of 1984 in the Grape Road corridor; the headquarters on Grape Road; the Hyundai (1999) and Subaru (2003) additions, as the group's own boilerplate states them.