MOTOR KING’S 50-YEAR JOURNEY

James Frizelle and family embark on next frontier

GOLD Coast car dealership mogul James Frizelle admits when starting a two-bay Chrysler showroom in 1965 he “didn’t have a clue” about motor sales.

At the time, the junior mechanic had to borrow several thousand from his father and an uncle to do the deal.

“I started selling cars and I didn’t have a clue, hadn’t sold cars before,” he says.

Fast forward 52 years and the vehicle dealership giant which bears his name – James Frizelle’s Automotive Group – is one of the Gold Coast’s and state’s most well-known firms.

Selling 15,000 new and second-hand cars annually with a growing footprint, it has also recently become part

of one of the biggest private dealerships in the country.

NSW-based Peter Warren Automotive Group and investor Quadrant Private Equity have combined with Frizelle’s group to form a behemoth that will generate about $1.5 billion in annual revenues.

Not bad for a guy who says he pulled the pin on his Chrysler showroom and its associated Marshall Batteries depot in the late 1970s with little interest in ever returning to car sales.

At that stage he started small property developments, mainly some shops, with his brother in Burleigh Heads after a move to the Gold Coast.

“I didn’t intend to get back into the motor trade. I was happy with property,” he said, sitting at his desk in his Nind Street, Southport office.

Since the big deal two months ago, Mr Frizelle and his team are now solely responsible for overseeing the property side of the group, with all the dealership sites leased back to the new entity.

In essence, Peter Warren Automotive Group and Quadrant bought James Frizelle’s Automotive Group with Mr Frizelle’s son Brett and his wife Rebecca reinvesting substantially back into the new entity.

As James sums it up: “It was an offer too good to refuse and about time I retired. Personally, I went from 700 staff to seven. We just look after the properties, some that aren’t with the deal and others we leased out to them. We are landlord to the properties the group has purchased.

“I wouldn’t have done it unless they could take over all our staff, which they have.”

After his initial Chrysler foray in the 1960s and ’70s, he didn’t return to the car trade