The used car dealership did not answer phone calls Tuesday during business hours, and it had a for sale sign posted at the property. The Centerville location is no longer listed on the national Thrifty Car Sales website.
The site operated as Planet Ford until January, when the dealership merged with a Ford dealership in Fairfield. Owner Martin Management Group, of Bowling Green, Ky., opened three local “Thrifty Car Sales” lots this year, renaming the Alex-Bell lot “Thrifty Car Sales of Centerville.”
Martin also opened Thrifty lots at 1575 Miamisburg-Centerville Road (the former Lincoln-Mercury of Dayton) and 2135 state Route 235 South in New Carlisle (the former New Carlisle Chevrolet). More recently, Martin also brought Meineke service centers to its local Thrifty dealers.
Now, the Centerville lot is devoid of vehicles. Signs posted on the building referred visitors Tuesday to other Thrifty and Meineke locations.
A Martin representative could not be reached Tuesday. But in an interview in August, Chadwick Martin, Martin company co-owner and son of company founder Cornelius Martin, acknowledged that the company took a sales hit of nearly 15 percent in 2009 compared to 2008. He declined to provide precise figures.
Cornelius Martin got his start in the Dayton area when he opened what was Saturn of Dayton (and is now Subaru of Dayton) in 1991. Now, Martin owns five Dayton-area vehicle dealerships and Fairfield Ford in Butler County.
The Thrifty brand name is owned by Tulsa, Okla.-based Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc. Dollar and Thrifty have about 600 corporate and franchised locations in North America.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2390 or tgnau@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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