DALTON, Ga. - Mountain View Auto Group founder C. Austin Watson would have turned 91 on Thursday, as one of the area's largest locally owned family of dealerships opened a new Nissan store here.
"The whole organization, including the store here, owes it to Mr. Watson who started the whole thing," said Thomas Williams, executive manager of Mountain View Nissan of Dalton, about the group's founder who died in 2005.
The official opening of the multimillion-dollar, 55,000-square-foot facility off Walnut Avenue comes after the Nissan dealership had been operating out of a triple-wide trailer during construction much of the last year, said Don Thomas, the group's managing partner.
Staff photo by Mike Pare / Mountain View Nissan of Dalton on Thursday marked the opening of its new store. People in the showroom mingle in front of design tablets on which customers can pick the features on their new car.Nissan sales
The Nissan-Renault alliance was tops in sales worldwide for the first six months of 2017. The coalition of Japanese and French automakers sold 5.26 million vehicles in the first half of the year, besting German carmaker Volkswagen’s 5.15 million.
Chattanooga-based Mountain View Auto Group, started more than 35 years ago, bought the Pye Nissan inventory in Dalton last year. It remodeled the former Sale Auto Mall into the new dealership near Walnut Square Mall.
Sales are ranging from 150 to 175 vehicles a month and growing, Thomas said.
"We grew the business every month. We're thrilled to be in the market," he said.
Eric Ledieu, Nissan's Southeast regional vice president, said the dealership that sports lots of glass, open space, and technology is one of the first of a new design for the automaker.
"It is the future," he said, citing investments which dealers such as Mountain View are making in new stores.
Late last year, Sonic Automotive erected a $9.8 million Nissan dealership in Cleveland, Tenn.
Mountain View already operates a Nissan store in downtown Chattanooga. Sonic in 2014 bought Nissan of Chattanooga East off Highway 153.
Ledieu said that Nissan, which has its North American headquarters in Franklin, Tenn., and an assembly plant in Smyrna, Tenn., is the Volunteer State's second largest private employer with more than 10,000 workers, behind Vanderbilt University.
Williams said the new Dalton store lets customers pick out the features in their own new vehicles with the use of computer tablets. Also, people can watch technicians service their autos on a 60-inch TV, he said.
"We can put seven cars in the showroom," Williams said.
Thomas said that time was an issue for Mountain View when it came to raising the new store, and Dillard Construction Co. put it up quickly.
He said that Mountain View remains in a growth mode. Earlier this week, the company announced plans for a new 35,000-square-foot Mountain View Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram store in Ringgold, Ga. Mountain View purchased that Georgia dealership about three years ago.
Mountain View is still looking for opportunities though officials want to stay within about one hour of Chattanooga, Thomas said.
He said officials want to be able to "reach out and touch it every day."
The auto group goes back to 1981 when C. Austin Watson, grandfather of cousins Clay Watson and Austin Watson, bought the Ford dealership. After tackling the venture alone for several years, his two sons, Don and David, along with nephew Andy Watson, joined him to run and help grow the business.
Together, they later acquired the downtown Chattanooga Nissan store in 1988 and then in 1999 purchased a site on Chapman Road for the used car dealership known as Mtn View @ 153.
In 2006, the group bought the Lincoln franchise, and then the Chevrolet dealership from Newton Chevrolet in 2007.
Thomas married Austin Watson's sister and entered the business after conversations with Austin's father, Don.
Last year, Mountain View bought Pandora's European Motorsports on Highway 58, which sells motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles.
Contact Mike Pare at mpare@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6318.