Longtime Denver-area car dealership changes its name — and business model

Bozarth Chevrolet, in business in the Denver area for more than three decades, has changed its name and overhauled how it sells cars.

Kent Bozarth, the owner and the third generation in his family in the automotive business, said Ed Bozarth Chevrolet in Aurora is now Celebration Chevrolet. The name change became official in early June and marks what Bozarth said is a new model in car buying based on what consumers say they want.

“In the consumer research we did, the thing that came out loud and clear was the desire to be able to have a car-buying experience that’s fast, fun and easy,” Bozarth said.

The effort to turn what people might dread as a painful experience into a positive one spawned the new name “Celebration.”

“We were able to spend more time during the pandemic to really think through what this all looked like,” Bozarth said. “It allowed us the opportunity to start with a blank sheet of paper.”

Bozarth said his team looked at “mitigating every single pain point of the experience.” One example is getting rid of the haggling over price.

“The price shown on the website is the price you pay,” Bozarth said.

Hearing that customers don’t like taking just short test drives with sales people, the dealership decided to give people an opportunity to try out a vehicle on their own for 24 hours. The dealership will even take the car to a shopper’s house.

Within 10 days, people with buyer’s remorse can return a vehicle and get all their money back with caveats: they can’t drive it more than 500 miles and must return the vehicle in the same condition as when it left the lot.

Celebration is using technology to streamline the process and give customers more control, Bozarth said. The dealership is using the shift to online transactions and meetings made during the pandemic to make car buying more efficient.

At Celebration, people can talk to what the dealership calls “ambassadors” via Zoom or video chat about what they want. Bozarth cited information from CarProUSA showing that more than 38% of shoppers plan to conduct the entire car buying experience online and another 38% intend to purchase a vehicle in person, but complete the paperwork online.

Bozarth’s grandfather started the family in the automotive business in 1927 with a service station in Kansas. His father, Ed Bozarth, opened his first dealership in 1966 in Topeka, Kan., and started the one in Aurora in 1987.

Kent Bozarth owns a dealership in Lone Tree, which is keeping the Bozarth name, and has interest in one in Grand Junction. He concedes it’s different to drive to work and see the name Celebration Chevrolet where the family name used to be.

“Every generation in the family business needs to move the brand in a new direction. It’s what keeps companies young.”