The buyer of Pendragon’s final U.S. store is a fresh face as a dealership owner with his own AutoNation connection. “We are a new group; this is our first dealership,” Sudhir Sood, CEO of Redwood Automotive, told Automotive News. “But I have a lot of automotive experience.”
Sood said he started in the industry as a salesman 35 years ago. Prior to purchasing the Santa Monica store, he was general manager at Land Rover Encino, an AutoNation dealership, for the past seven years, he said. Sood said he worked for AutoNation for about 20 years after starting as a general manager there in 2001.
Sood said he has business partners but declined to name them.
“I’ve been associated with the JLR product for a long time,” he said. “I know the L.A. market. I’ve been in L.A. since 1988.
“Pendragon was selling all their stores, leaving the country, and this was the last store left. It has a lot of opportunity.”