Gurley Leep: the Buick store bought in 1977

1977 - present

The salesman first: The Gurley Leep story begins ten years before the name existed, in another man's showroom. Mike Leep Sr. started out as a salesman at Highland Dodge in 1967, knew very quickly that he wanted to be a dealer, worked his way into management, and in 1974 Chrysler offered him the Highland Dodge store where he had started. When it came time to expand, Leep and his former business partner Van Gurley looked east to the South Bend area. The founder's course matters to this section because it is the postwar trade's classic ladder, climbed in order: salesman in 1967, manager, dealer in 1974, and then the move to the bigger market.

The founding: In 1977 Mike Leep Sr. and Van Gurley purchased the Buick store in downtown South Bend. The house's own account, printed identically across its stores, states the founding in one sentence: "Founded in 1977 by Mike Leep Sr. and Van Gurley, the Gurley Leep Automotive Family began with a Buick dealership in South Bend, Indiana, built on a simple belief: treat people the right way and success will follow." A Buick dealership in downtown South Bend in 1977 was a purchase made against the current, downtown stores were the past of the trade by then, and the belief sentence is the one the family still prints. The downtown Buick store's street address is not fixed in the sources found, and it is carried in the open items; the purchase, the year, the marque and the downtown ground are fixed by the house and the founder's profile together.

The closing line: From the one Buick store the family grew into the region's largest group: twenty automotive brands across twenty-four dealerships in five states and more than 1,500 team members, on the house's published figures, led today by the second generation, Mike Leep Jr. and James Leep, with the group's headquarters on Grape Road in Mishawaka, its Ford store at 320 East Ireland Road in South Bend facing the Gates stores across the corridor, and its Motorwerks store at 4004 Grape Road. Founded 1977 in a downtown Buick store by a former Dodge salesman and his partner; family owned for nearly fifty years; the name over more doors in Michiana than any other in this section. That is the closing line, and the founding sentence the house wrote for itself is the right start to it, because the growth since is the belief, compounded.

Sources:

1. Gurley Leep Automotive Family, the house's About page, identical across its store sites (the 1977 founding by Mike Leep Sr. and Van Gurley, beginning with a Buick dealership in South Bend; the leadership of Mike Leep Jr. and James Leep; twenty brands, twenty-four dealerships, five states, more than 1,500 team members).
2. Gurley Leep company profile (the founder's course: Highland Dodge salesman 1967, the store offered in 1974, the eastward look and the 1977 purchase of the downtown South Bend Buick store; the Grape Road headquarters).
3. The houses' own pages (Gurley Leep Ford, 320 E. Ireland Road, South Bend; Gurley Leep Motorwerks, 4004 Grape Road, Mishawaka; Subaru joined the family in 2003).