"SUV plows into crowd at Framingham car auction, injuring 8" by Peter Schworm and Andy Rosen Globe Staff October 09, 2015
FRAMINGHAM — Eight people were injured at a car auction Friday when a luxury SUV abruptly accelerated across a warehouse floor and into a crowd of people before smashing through a cinder block wall.
The runaway BMW sent bystanders scrambling for cover and left a crowd of several hundred people at Adesa Boston’s weekly auction stunned.
Some people who attended the auction, at a Western Avenue warehouse, said they didn’t plan to come back.
“It’s very upsetting,” said Ed Bassuk as he drove out of the large complex. Bassuk said the company should not have unreliable drivers working at auctions, especially given the close quarters and large crowds.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene that unfolded in seconds, shattering the routine of a weekly auction that draws car dealers from across the region....
The car was on display and the driver, a 78-year-old man, hit the gas instead of the brake?
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Speaking of dealerships:
"Amid auto boom, Boch cashes out while Chambers expands" by Jon Chesto Globe Staff October 09, 2015
Selling cars is a lucrative business right now. Prominent investors and national chains are offering big money to buy dealerships as cars sell at a brisk pace not seen in more than a decade.
Corporate consolidation is not the sign of a well-driven economy, sorry.
But two of the Boston area’s best-known auto executives took different turns in the face of interest from potential buyers.
Ernie Boch Jr. just sold five dealerships for an undisclosed amount to Dan Dagesse, a longtime dealer who has managed Boch’s stores for several years, and Dagesse’s son, Christopher. The new owners will keep the Boch name on the stores.
But the state’s biggest auto dealer, Herb Chambers, is looking to expand, not cash out of his empire of 55 franchises. Chambers said he rebuffs offers for his car business periodically. At the age of 73, he is still looking to buy more dealerships, particularly in Connecticut and New Hampshire, and has a meeting scheduled for Friday with a dealer who may sell.
The frenzy of deal-making among auto sellers in the past year, attracting the interest of famed investors Warren Buffett and George Soros in dealerships around the United States, reflects a 180-degree turn from the Great Recession roughly eight years ago.
You know, the "good billionaires.
"At that time, locally owned dealerships were closing, and anxious consumers opted to get a few more miles out of their current rides. Today, with the stronger economy and low interest rates and gasoline prices, sales of vehicles — especially trucks — are at their highest volume since 2005.
So we are told.
Buffett injected some high-octane fuel into the race last year when his company, Berkshire Hathaway, agreed to pay an estimated $4 billion for a large, family-owned dealership group based in Phoenix. He said he’s on the prowl for more.
“It seems like Wall Street money has discovered that the automobile business is a good place to be,” Chambers said.
Then time to get out the car!
Boch, though, chose to sell to an associate instead of to a Wall Street banker.
Well, given a choice of where to buy....
Boch’s sale was reported in other media last week....
Globe got scooped or they just sour on him now?
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The guy on the right just made it into the big time.
Honk! Honk! Honk!
(Blog editor then flips middle finger)
