Ourisman Cars moves into a new state with a seamless transaction

Ourisman Cars in August acquired Toyota of Roanoke Rapids in North Carolina, and the transaction comes across as a dream deal.

Given that it involved a great franchise in an excellent location, there was a lot to like about the acquisition, Robert Ourisman Jr, president and CEO of Ourisman Cars, told Getting to Go.

“It’s really smack dab in the middle between Raleigh and Richmond,” he said, “so, you know, two pretty strong markets and it just made a ton of sense.”

This is the group’s first dealership in North Carolina and second Toyota franchise. It now has 18 rooftops that, except for the newest store, are clustered in Maryland, Virginia and Delaware.

Adding to Toyota of Roanoke Rapids’ appeal, the facility was brand new and image compliant, and the dealership had excellent employees who stayed with the dealership.

To top it all off, it was a single point, making the transaction “seamless,” Ourisman said.

“Sometimes, you desire a franchise and it’s part of a portfolio with maybe franchises you don’t necessarily want to represent in a market, or you don’t believe in that market, which can muddy up deals,” he said.

The new store, now called Ourisman Toyota 95, fronts the Interstate 95 freeway, as the name indicates. It’s a straight shot south down the 95 for 200 miles from the group’s headquarters in Rockville, MD. Many of Ourisman Cars’ other dealerships are also close to the 95.

Hands-on management

That proximity will allow Ourisman Cars to be a bit more hands-on in managing the Toyota store than the previous owner, Ourisman said. “Our core markets are a lot closer, and I think we can pay a lot more attention” to the Roanoke Rapids store, he said.

Ourisman acquired the Toyota dealership from Joe Marshall, owner of Barnes Crossing Auto Group, based in Tupelo, MS. The Toyota dealership was the Mississippi group’s only store in North Carolina, Stephen Jones, a managing director of the Dave Cantin Group, told Getting to Go. “It was kind of an outlier,” he said.

Dave Cantin Group represented Robert Ourisman in the off-market transaction. DCG knew both the buyer and the seller. “It wasn’t a wide-net approach; it was very strategic,” Jones said.

Robert Ourisman “proved incredibly easy to work with,” Jones added. “He didn’t let minutiae get in the way.”

Haggling over any discount for facility improvements wasn’t an issue. The Toyota store was image compliant. It is “beautiful,” Ourisman said. The facility had been relocated and built to Toyota’s image requirements “literally within two years, so it’s still very fresh as a new location,” he said.

And then there’s the fact that it is a Toyota franchise. In The Presidio Group’s Mid-Year 2026 Dealer Direction Survey, dealers ranked Toyota as the most desirable brand.

“We think the future is obviously very bright with Toyota,” Ourisman said. His group can organically increase the new car sales volume, he said, but also grow used sales by bringing in its own processes.

Ourisman Cars brought in a new general manager who was previously at another of its stores but otherwise will keep most of the current staff, Ourisman said. He emphasized that while they will bring in their own processes, “I don’t ever want to fall into that trap of sort of cookie-cutter management and operations,” he said, “so we sort of dive into the culture of the store and the market we’re serving.”

Future growth

His group is always looking for great opportunities, whether in its backyard or a new state, Ourisman said. “It is not how many states or regions you can get into, it’s where you can find just great deals, you know?” he said.

Ourisman, 36, figures he has three decades left to grow the group, grow the Ourisman brand, find great deals, “and, you know, represent great franchises and be successful.”