Long-Lewis auto dealership in Hoover celebrates 100 years as official Ford franchise

The Long-Lewis Ford Lincoln dealership in Hoover truly is in it for the long run.

The dealership this past week celebrated 100 years as an official Ford franchise.

Ford Motor Co. executives over the Atlanta region, which includes all of Georgia, 80 percent of Alabama and southeast Tennessee, were in Hoover to recognize the unusual accomplishment.

“This is a really big deal,” said Alan Brauer, the regional manager for parts and service. He has seen only one other dealership reach the 100-year mark, he said.

Tony Watkins, Ford’s regional manager for sales and operations, said Long-Lewis Ford is one of the better-performing dealerships in the region. Ford has been giving out President’s Awards for outstanding customer satisfaction in sales and service for 30 years, and Long-Lewis has won the award 29 times, Watkins said.

This past year, less than 10 percent of Ford dealerships – about 300 nationally – received the President’s Award, he said.

 “To win it once is hard, but to win it 29 times --- they are a model dealer,” Watkins said.

And it is becoming more unusual to see family-owned dealerships such as Long-Lewis, he said. More and more are selling their dealerships to corporate entities, he said.

The Long-Lewis car dealership actually began in 1911 when William Long of the Long-Lewis Hardware store in Bessemer added Ford automobiles to his line of Studebaker buggies and wagons, according to the company history on its website.

The chassis and body for Fords were shipped to Birmingham via rail. Then wheels were put on them, and they were driven to Long-Lewis Hardware in downtown Bessemer.

In 1915, Ford began granting franchises, and Long-Lewis Hardware became one of the first to get one.

In 1921, a two-story addition was added to the hardware building to house the Ford division, and then in 1965, the Ford store moved to the Bessemer Superhighway.

Vaughn Burrell, who was hired to manage the dealership in 1961, said he bought out the Long family businesses in 1986 after three generations of Longs had run the companies.

Burrell’s son, Dwight Burrell, joined the company in 1985 and took over management of the dealership as president in 1996, though the father remains as chairman of the company.

In January 1999, Long-Lewis moved the dealership to a new 84,000-square-foot facility on John Hawkins Parkway in Hoover, but not without a fight.

At first, the plan was to bring both the car dealership and heavy truck division to Hoover. The Burrells wanted a site along John Hawkins Parkway next to Interstate 459, but they couldn’t get enough landowners to sell, so they chose a site a little bit away from the interstate, across from Hunter Street Baptist Church.

Hoover residents along John Hawkins Parkway protested, particularly about the heavy truck division. Long-Lewis considered putting the heavy trucks closer to Hoover Metropolitan Stadium but eventually decided to keep them at the site in Bessemer, Vaughn Burrell said.

Moving to Hoover was a hard decision, he said. They had been at the Bessemer Superhighway location for 34 years, so there were a lot of emotions tied to that spot, he said.

His son, Dwight, said he had to prod his father into making the move, but he knew they needed to do it because Hoover was experiencing so much growth with new homes.

“We knew this would be a great market for new Fords. It just made sense to be where the growth was,” Dwight Burrell said. “It has been a very good location. We’ve had great success here and enjoy being in this community.”

The first two or three years in Hoover saw substantial growth in sales volume, Dwight Burrell said. The company went from selling about 300 vehicles a month in Bessemer to a peak of about 500 vehicles per month in 2005 and 2006, he said.

Then a downturn hit for the entire automobile industry. While the industry has recovered some, sales numbers have not returned to 2006 levels, he said. Today, the dealership sells about 250 vehicles per month, including about 50 used vehicles, he said.

Ever since moving to Hoover, Long-Lewis Ford Lincoln is consistently ranked first or second in the state in the sale of new Fords, Dwight Burrell said.

The Burrells take pride in their customer satisfaction scores.

Roy Smith is probably one of their most loyal customers. In the last 20 years, the Pell City man has bought about 28 vehicles from Long-Lewis, including the ones he bought for his four daughters, he said.

“I’m not your typical car purchaser,” Smith said. “I buy one to two every year, and some years I buy three from them.”

Right now, he has at least seven vehicles, but at any given time, he may own 17, he said. He likes vehicles a lot. He’s also a pilot and likes to keep vehicles at different airports to use when he flies places, he said.

“The Explorer I have now is probably one of the best vehicles I’ve ever owned,” he said. “That’s a really nice ride.”

What Smith likes about Long-Lewis is the no-haggle pricing.

“Whatever price is on the windshield is what you pay,” he said. “There’s no worrying about having to talk to a manager.”

The Long-Lewis service department also can’t be beat, Smith said. “I’ve even had some body work done there,” he said.

He always works with the same salesman, Don Mathews, and likes the way the dealership treats him, he said. In 2010, he bought a candy-apple red Mustang GT for his wife. It had a six-shift manual transmission, and she hurt her foot and couldn’t drive it.  It was less than a year old with just 2,000 miles on it, but they let him trade it in at a decent price, he said.

Vaughn Burrell said he has seen a lot of changes in the automotive business over the years.

He remembers when people could buy a pretty good car for $200 to $400 in 1954. People once had to pay $16 to $21 extra for turn signals, $16 more for back-up lights, $45 for a radio and $50 for a heater, he said. Now, all of those features come standard on the vehicles.

Financing plans for vehicles formerly only lasted for 18 months, but now vehicles can be financed up to 72 months, he said. Warranties once were only good for 90 days or 4,500 miles, and now warranties can last for five years or 60,000 miles, he said.

He has seen interest rates for vehicle loans as high as 21 percent during the oil crisis in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and as low as zero percent.

But through it all, the Burrells kept selling vehicles. One of Vaughn Burrell’s grandsons, Joe Burrell, just started working at the dealership in Hoover this month after graduating from the University of Alabama. He will be going to dealer school and working in all the departments, Vaughn Burrell said.

“Maybe 10 or 12 years down the road, he’ll take over my son’s job,” Vaughn Burrell said. “That’s the plan.”

Another grandson, Eric Benson, is general manager of the heavy truck division in Bessemer, he said.

Dwight Burrell, the current president for Long-Lewis, said his family is very proud to be associated with a company that has been around for so long.

“We must be doing something right,” he said. “We’re still here.”