Driven to success: Vehicle sales brisk as Don K completes expansion

The Don K car dealership in Whitefish threw quite a party last week to celebrate the final piece of a transformative multimillion dollar expansion — a new 14,000-square-foot Subaru showroom.

With 450 vehicles in stock and a campus that now includes three buildings with a total of 53,000 square feet of space for sales and service of Subaru, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Dodge, Ram and Jeep vehicles, the dealership is now the largest new-car dealer in Montana, owner Don Kaltschmidt said.

It’s been a busy four years for Kaltschmidt.

He acquired the Subaru franchise from Glacier Motors in February 2010 and added it to his longtime Chevrolet dealership. A year later he bought Kari Dodge in Evergreen and added the Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep and Ram lines to the business.

The acquisitions quickly prompted a need for bigger facilities, so construction began on a new showroom in a second building on the property at the intersection of U.S. 93 and JP Road. The third building that now houses the Subaru operations caps a roughly $3 million facilities expansion.

As the buildings have been completed, there has been some shuffling of where the various vehicle models are located. The original building closest to JP Road has been completely remodeled and how is the Chrysler showroom and service center for Chrysler and Chevrolet.

The middle building — once the Subaru showroom — is now the Chevrolet showroom and body shop. The third building on the north end of the site accommodates the Subaru dealership, including the showroom and service area.

While the construction is complete, Kaltschmidt already is planning for possible future needs and recently purchased 13 acres across the highway where some of the dealership’s vehicles are parked.

“Our family believes in being prepared for the future,” he said.

Business is booming for Don K.

The dealership has seen five-fold growth in the last few years, with 2014 off to a brisk start. January and February vehicle sales were up 28 percent over 2013.

“We’re still growing. Subaru is doing really well, but Chrysler and Chevrolet are up, too. They’re all up,” Kaltschmidt said.

The dealership has hit the three-year mark with Chrysler, a benchmark of time it takes to establish a customer base.

“Any time you start a new franchise it takes time for repeat customers and name recognition,” he said, adding that many Flathead Valley residents had been leaving the area for Chrysler, Dodge and Ram products. “We’ve turned that around.”

The Canadian traffic has fueled growth, too.

Sales of new vehicles to Canadians are hampered by import laws, but that hasn’t stopped Kaltschmidt from tapping into the Canadian market. The dealership sells late-model used vehicles and provides service and body work for Canadian customers.

Kaltschmidt hasn’t forgotten, though, how bleak business was five years ago. For the entire month of February in 2009 — the depths of the recession — Don K sold just 13 vehicles and the service shop was losing money. The work force dwindled to 28 employees.

Sales in 2009 as a stand-alone Chevy dealership were about $12 million. But by 2012 Don K was up to $66 million in sales and 2013 was even better.

“Now we’ll sell more than 13 vehicles in two days,” he said. “We have well over 90 employees.”

Kaltschmidt is quick to credit others for his success.

“The Lord has blessed me,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of good teachers — Jim Dowen and Tommy Thomas — and I’ve been lucky with great employees.”

Kaltschmidt, a 1974 Flathead High School graduate, got into the car business shortly after completing military service with the Marine Corps.

“I was a Chevy guy,” he stated. “And I always wanted to be a car dealer.”

He started working for a dealership in 1979 in Southern California. Incidentally, Kaltschmidt is not the only one in his family who’s well-known in the world of cars. His younger brother, Ken, made his mark racing with the NASCAR Northwest Tour for a few years and is a former Montana 200 race winner.

Kaltschmidt started out as an employee of Jim Dowen Chevrolet in Whitefish in the mid-1980s and bought into the business in 1990. A year later he bought out Dowen and his partner, Tommy Thomas.

Locals still recall the TV commercials from Kaltschmidt’s early days of promoting Don K. People occasionally recite the catch-phrase to him when they spot him in a crowd: “Don’t you buy no ugly truck.”

“I had to figure out a way to get on the map. I decided to go the crazy route,” he said with a laugh as he recalled the zany commercials. “I figured they’ll either love them or hate me, but they would all remember me.”

These days it’s a family affair for Don K.

His oldest son Erik, 30, is sales manager for the Chrysler-Dodge-Ram models. Erik has degrees in economics and international business from Utah State University and spent a couple of years on a mission trip in Brazil before solidifying his career with Don K.

The middle son, Jason, 29, is Internet manager for the business. The dealership’s online presence is continuously growing and bringing in new customers from throughout the region.

A third son, Kevin, 25, will graduate from the University of Montana next year with a business degree and will join the family business.

Kaltschmidt’s wife, Debbie, doesn’t work directly at the dealership but has a hand in event planning and was involved in the decor for the new facilities.

As Kaltschmidt surveys the newly completed Subaru showroom, he’s pleased with the result. It was a collaborative effort: Subaru had certain design standards it wanted and the city’s Architectural Review Committee had certain design standards it wanted.

The building fits well into the Whitefish landscape, he said. “I think we got an awesome product.”

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.