Automotive News

Ernie Boch Jr., left, plays Captain Bernard on "Rescue Me," the TV drama starring Denis Leary, right.

BOSTON - I'm sitting across the desk from Ernie Boch Jr. and I don't believe my eyes. In midconversation with this 49-year-old Boston car dealer - who looks a little like Clark Kent or maybe a strait-laced IBM salesman from the early 1960s - he whips out a hypodermic needle and shoots himself with insulin.

In my many years as a reporter, I've never had that happen before.

Then, without even mentioning that he had just jabbed himself with a needle the size of a harpoon, Boch resumes a high-energy discussion that goes on for the better part of seven hours.

But that's Ernie Boch for you. He's just full of surprises.

At one point, he invites me to lunch at a Norwood restaurant, a place where everybody knows his name. The wait staffers are teasing him about his young wife. They know him because, well, he's Ernie Boch, star of stage and screen, an advertising legend in these parts.

Boch's advertising, such as this print piece that borrows from the well-known Coppertone ad, is created by his five-person in-house marketing staff.

Boch is tall, slim and conservative in appearance with those black-rim glasses. But he has got to be the wackiest car dealer in America. Boch is a madcap media junkie, a born entertainer who doesn't let diabetes or anything else get in his way. He will do just about anything to gain attention for his $1.5 billion auto retailing empire, from hosting Saturday horror flicks in ghoulish get-up to opening for B.B. King with his rock band, Ernie and the Automatics, to taking a role in a major TV series.

And then there are the commercials that Boch stars in, which are produced by his five-person in-house marketing staff. One of the print ads, called Coppertone, shows a tanned Ernie in swimwear at the beach. A dog pulls down his trunks, leaving a red-faced Boch with an exposed white butt.

He's the king of outrageous, and what he is doing works.

A Boch bobblehead is just one of his many promotional efforts.
Photo credit: BETHANY VERSOY

In the tiny town of Norwood, Mass., about 17 miles south of Boston, Boch runs the No. 1 Honda store in the country and the No. 3 Toyota store. He also has a smaller Toyota store and operates Kia, Maserati and Ferrari franchises. On top of that, Boch owns one of the nation's two Subaru distributorships. Altogether, his Boch Automotive empire did $1.5 billion sales in 2006, evenly split between his wholesale and retail businesses.

'It's about selling me'

Last year, Boch became the top Honda dealer, ousting longtime leader Norm Reeves Honda in "Norm Reeves is toast," Boch brags.

As he pulled ahead of Reeves last August, Boch was so brazen that he flew in his $15 million nine-passenger Citation Sovereign jet to Los Angeles and shot two commercials on the Reeves property before, he says, he was booted out. Then he sent the commercials to Reeves' sales staffers to heckle them.

Big Boch's stores

Boch Automotive unit sales in 2006
Boch Toyota:10,529 (8,423 new, 2,106 used)
Boch Honda:8,133 (6,968 new, 1,165 used)
All 5 Boch dealerships: 28,261 (20,710 new, 7,551 used)
Subaru of New England wholesale: 27,593

As The Ghoul, Boch is host of the weekly "Creature Double Feature" on Boston TV.
Photo credit: Rebecca Gauchman

"Now I'm going for No. 2 Toyota," Boch says. He expects to accomplish that next year.
"People come from miles and miles to buy from us," he boasts. "People like to buy things from people they like. This is not about selling cars; it's about selling me."

Boch grew up in Norwood, the son of Ernie Boch Sr., who was the first famous car dealer in the family. Boch Sr. also was known for his outrageous TV spots, such as smashing w indshields to emphasize his smashing deals. He died of cancer in July 2003 at age 76.

"Since Ernie Sr. died, the business has not missed a beat," says Laura Raposa, gossip columnist for the Boston Herald. "All roads go through Ernie in Boston. We write a lot about him because he's so cool. He's one of those characters who demands attention. He's rich and he has rich friends."

In New England, he is more celebrity than car dealer. For instance, Boch is:

Boch is also the face in quirky print and TV ad campaigns for his dealerships. One of his Web sites, www.savearockstar.com, shows Boch as a punk rocker promising a site filled with raunchy entertainment. But when you click through, the Web site actually promotes Boch's dealerships.

Dealers like him

Of course, he's not just a car dealer, he's a distributor, too.

Frank Hanenberger, owner of Metrowest Subaru in Natick, Mass., is one of the 66 dealers affiliated with Boch's Subaru distributorship. The former General Motors engineer and Ford Motor Co. field rep says he likes having a retailer run the wholesale business.

Some members of Ernie and the Automatics were in the iconic '70s rock band Boston.
Photo credit: BETHANY VERSOY

"I look at him as a regional manager," Hanenberger says. "The field guys for the companies have none of their money on the line so there is always contentiousness. Ernie knows the retail business, so we don't have that with him.

"Where the dealers butt heads with Ernie is with the advertising. He's got good buying power and likes to use TV, print and radio. That's fine for his (retail) stores, but for a little guy like me, that doesn't work. We have to do the new media. Ernie doesn't understand the Internet."

All of Boch's ads are produced in-house. He says he spends about $2 million annually on his retail stores and $8 million to $12 million on regional ads for his Subaru dealers. He is not featured in Subaru advertising.

"Did I learn advertising from my father? Absolutely," Boch says. "I got my advertising flair from him."

As a teen, Boch worked in his father's business doing menial chores. Music was his first love. He received a B.A. from the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston.

After graduation, he played a few gigs around the country but didn't make much money. "I didn't know what I wanted to do," he says.

He goofed around until he was 25.

"Then I needed to make money so I asked the old man for a job," he says. "That's how I got in the business."

He worked in all facets of car retailing, but his father was always the face of Boch Automotive.

"The biggest thing I miss about him is that he would make the tough decisions, and I'd just follow the marching orders," Boch says of his father. "And nine times out of 10, he was right. Now I have to make those decisions. That appeared to be very easy for my dad, but it's hard for me."

And the younger Boch has had to make some tough decisions.

He flirted with PR disaster in 2004 when 6,500 customers claimed that Boch violated state law by secretly selling them a theft-deterrent window-etching option they did not want. He settled out of court for more than $400,000.

"I don't try to screw the customer," he says. "On my Web site, there's an icon that says, 'Tell it to Ernie,' so they can come directly to me."

Gut instincts

Boch's rock and blues band, Ernie and the Automatics, has opened for national acts such as B.B. King.
Photo credit: Rebecca Gauchman

Boch is a guy who goes with his gut. And he has some strong opinions that he isn't afraid to express. He sold his Mitsubishi store in 2005 because he didn't think the new boss was the right guy.

"When they hired (former CEO Rich) Gilligan, the second I met him, I knew he couldn't do it," Boch says.

He dumped his Dodge store in July. "I have no confidence in the direction of the new Chrysler," he says.

And he's not that keen about Kia. "I don't see the (Kia) dealers making money anytime soon," he says. "Toyota and Honda, these are the hottest guys in the nation."

As for Maserati and Ferrari, he says: "It's exciting stuff. I can only get 30 to 40 new Ferraris a year, so most of the business is used and service."

Boch drives a Ferrari and his wife drives a Maserati.

The wife and kids

On this day, Boch was dressed in casual white slacks and short-sleeved white shirt. At lunch he munched on oysters, then polished off two hamburgers without buns, broccoli and red wine. He handles the kidding about marrying later in life, at age 41, to a much younger woman with aplomb.

"My wife is 16 years younger than me," he explains.

Kristen is a local girl. She and Ernie met while Kristen was working in one of the Boch dealerships.

"She's as much fun as Ernie is," gossip columnist Raposa says. "She's a down-to-earth girl. Her father is a cop. But Ernie was just a regular guy when he was growing up. He wasn't riding around in limousines."

Boch and Kristen have two children, 6-year-old Kelsey and 4-year-old Alex. Kristen is a stay-at-home mom.

Just a few blocks from his office, Boch is erecting a multimillion-dollar mansion with carriage and guest houses and an indoor pool.

On Nov. 1, he will break ground on a 100,000-square-foot $20 million headquarters for the Subaru distributorship next door to the current headquarters in Norwood.

"It will be totally modern," he says.

Check out the bathrooms to understand Boch's idea of modern. He favors top-of-the line Japanese bidets that sell for $1,000-plus. He already has four - at home, at his airport hangar, at his private office and at his box at Gillette Stadium, home of the NFL's New England Patriots.

He says vice presidents and up at the distributorship will get the most expensive bidets in their bathrooms, those that can do everything from washing your underbody to keeping your bottom warm. Every other bathroom will have entry-level bidets.

"They're great. I love those things," he says.

But Boch is not all flash.

"On the one hand, he may seem like a big self-promoter," Raposa says. "But he's also very charitable."

Boch founded Music Drives Us in 2005 with $2 million of his own money. The charitable foundation has awarded 21 grants to music students totaling $144,201. Boch says the board will award another $50,000 in grants later this month.

"It's amazing what you can get done when you're the boss," Boch says. "First, I'm a businessman. The business allows me to do these other things."

You may e-mail Kathy Jackson at kjackson@crain.com