She rides a bike, can pilot a plane and runs one of America’s largest dealer groups.

Rita Case, CEO of Rick Case Automotive Group of Sunrise, Florida

One of the rare woman principals in the car dealer world talks about the state of the automotive industry.

TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICE | Feb. 18, 2022

If you want to get a sense of the current state of automotive industry, you can always as an automotive executive or a Wall Street pundit. But no one can give the real sense of the industry like a car dealer.

“Everybody's saying EVs are going to take everything by storm. But I'm not so sold on that myself because you know customer interest is still so low,” says Rita Case, Chief Executive Officer of Rick Case Automotive, the 34th largest dealership group in the United States according to Automotive News. One of the few women in the United States running a major dealer group, Case’s dealerships pull in more than $1 billion annually though 14 stores in Georgia and Florida.

“They (automakers) want you to put charging stations in the parking lot," Case said. "Why would you have a charging station at a dealership? The only time a person goes to a dealership is to buy a car or service their car. It's not like Whole Foods, where you're going into the grocery store and you're going to be in there for half an hour; or a shopping mall.”

For Case, the logic is puzzling.

“Are they thinking customers are going to say, ‘oh, I need to charge my car, so let me go over to Rick Case Hyundai, sit in their parking lot and charge my car.’ I don't get it.”

Case, who has been selling cars since high school, has a better idea.

“I think that they should put braded charging points in Whole Foods, at the malls. Brand them Hyundai, or Kia, and people will think, ‘wow, I better buy a KIa because look at all these charging stations.”

Still, Case thinks consumer acceptance of electric vehicles will be slow.

“Unless you can live your life with charging at home, I think that that until that can be overcome, I think it's going to be slow for people to buy them.”

Rita Case’s husband and bsiness partner, Rick Case, who died in 2020.

Case is used to changes in the business, as any auto dealer is. But the Pandemic and shortages upset a business model built over decades. Whereas Rick Case Automotive might have once had anywhere from 900-to-1,200 cars on the ground, the company currently has about 60. The lack of inventory has led to changes in sales procedures, as well as customer expectations.

 “We aren't selling fewer cars, they're just being sold differently. They are pre-sold. We still have inventory incoming to sell from. Our sales people are still seeing the same numbers we've had before because we're selling the same number of cars. So our customer base is still there.”

But automakers’ production shortages have led to reduced incentives, and few, if any, subvented leases, which includes an automaker incentive to lease a vehicle at a reduced cost. This has led more consumers to buy out their lease. Considering the current market, Case thinks it makes sense.

“When you leased it three years ago, you probably paid just a little over invoice, and the factory probably had a subvented lease program,” Case said, noting that currently, supply is low, and demand is high and incentives are scarce. So today, “it's going to be MSRP, so the lease payments are going to be much higher. So why not just buy your car and drive it for another three years?”

Such clear-eyed logic comes easily to Case, 66. A pilot and has a lifelong love of motorbikes, she grew up in Santa Rosa, California, the third of four children. Her father owned a garage and her mother ran the front of the store. "My dad was the repairman and my mom handled the front," Case remembers.

In 1959, Case’s father took on a Honda franchise, pedaling the little 50-cc scooter the company was then offering. As Honda’s fortunes blossomed, so did their business, and Rita’s father had a booming business selling Honda motorbikes. The business grew further when Honda began selling their first car in the United States in 1968, the diminutive N600. It was the car Case drove to high school, and sold in the family showroom, an ancillary building that also housed the business’s bathrooms. “I was running the dealership at every level before I even left for college.”

After graduating from the University of California, Davis in 1976, she took over the family business from her parents. She went on to become a part of the National Automobile Dealers Association’s first Honda 20 Group, which brings together dealers to share ideas and learn about the business. There, she stuck a friendship with Rick Case, a Honda dealer from Ohio.

“Three years later, we ended up deciding to get married and I moved to Ohio and start all over again.”

Rita’s younger brother took over the dealership in Santa Rosa, while she embarked on a personal and professional partnership that lasted more than four decades. Their roles in the business were clearly defined: he was CEO, she was COO. “We grew the company together as a team,” Rita said. “I came with a set of skills that were just so opposite of his, which made us just a dynamic pair to grow the business.”

When her husband died from cancer in 2020, Rita assumed the reigns of the privately-held company.

“They're all holding their breath going, ‘geez, let's find out if Rita can do it without the Rick factor. So that's where I'm at right now.”

Yet it hasn’t slowed her down. She intends to work for another 15-to-20 years and continues to be involved with charity work, including the Boca Raton Concours d’Elegance car show, held this year on February 27, which raises more than $1 million annually for the Boys & Girls Clubs.

For Rita Case is proof that women can be successful in the male-dominated automotive world.

“In the ’70s it was just like, ‘Oh, she'll never last; she’ll get tired, the hours, the negotiating, it's brutal competition.’ But now I think they feel like a woman can make it.”