It has been said that everything rises and falls on leadership. For Sonic Automotive, it all started when O. Bruton Smith as a young man, fell in love with cars and began racing and building cars in his parent's garage and subsequently began selling them in his front yard. His passion for building, racing, and selling automobiles led him to open his first used car dealership in Charlotte, North Carolina.
It was the leadership of Mr. Smith which formed the foundation of the Company we celebrate today. With 20 stores, representing15 brands and several hundred employees, Sonic Automotive was launched as a public company in November 1997. It is that same commitment to leadership, exercised every day by every one of our associates, which has made Sonic Automotive one of the largest and most successful automotive retailers in the country.
Today, Sonic
Automotive, as a Fortune 500 company and member
of the
Russell 2000 Index, is among the largest automotive retailers in the
United
States. These dealerships provide comprehensive services, including
sales of
both new and used cars and light trucks, sales of replacement parts,
performance of vehicle maintenance, warranty, paint and collision repair
services, and arrangement of extended warranty contracts, financing and
insurance for the company's customers.