Welcome to Maserati of Charleston
Service, Style and Hospitality the Charleston way

Optimism is a spur to greatness, and experience can often bear fruit in optimism.  Despite the economic doom and gloom which seems to dominate the news each night, despite the talk of recession and the sub-prime loans crisis, Maserati continues to go from strength to strength. 2007 saw record sales for the Italian marque, and 2008 looks set to be even better: 2008 sales are already posting double-digit growth over 2007. Enthusiasts are responding to the performance, style, craftsmanship, exclusivity and indeed value Maserati represents, and are rewarding it by making Maserati one of the only car manufacturers in any segment that is succeeding in these tight times. No wonder that since the beginning of last year, Maserati has announced the opening of no fewer than seven new dealerships, additions to the existing dealer network to help meet the increasing demand for the Quattroporte and GranTurismo.

Baker Motor Company, of Charleston, South Carolina, is one of those seven new dealerships. The company is already well-established, with numerous franchises – everything from Smart to Maybach, from Infiniti to Land Rover. The addition of Maserati to the portfolio makes perfect sense – they can now offer hand-crafted sedans and coupes with genuine sporting credentials, and which are truly exclusive. In addition to an established premium sales department, Baker Motor Company has a well-established service center which puts others in the shade.

On our recent visit to Charleston we met the president of the company, Tommy Baker. He explained that there is another advantage to Maserati becoming part of the Baker Motor Company: their existing client base. “Down the years, we’ve found that a customer who buys a car from us often comes back and buys another, of a different brand; someone who would buy a Mercedes-Benz would also buy a Land Rover, and someone who would buy a Porsche would also buy an Infiniti,” he told us. “Looking at the Maseratis we have sold so far, a lot of them have gone to people who were already clients of ours.

The Baker Motor Company has all of its franchises in one place, forming a large ‘campus’. “We’ve got ten acres here, and a thousand feet of frontage, which is pretty rare, and we’re continually buying more property,” Tommy explained. “We’ve just bought the next property along, so we’ll be expanding into that space. There’s no reason for anyone to go anyplace else when they shop with us – you don’t need to go across town, or even down the street, everything is right here.” Indeed, the campus is so large that staff use golf carts to get around.

While we were there, we visited the service department – and it was well worth it. Forget the usual mainstream experience of a dark workshop tucked away in a corner, with cracked vinyl seats, year-old magazines and vending machine coffee; Tommy’s service department is as impressive as the rest of the campus. The cars are serviced in immaculate, large, airy spaces with plenty of natural and electric lighting.  Service staff have every possible piece of equipment at their disposal, and each brand has a separate service area with its own dedicated, trained technicians.  It reminded us of the Maserati factory, one of the world's most advanced hand assembly facilities with superb quality control.  Owners can enjoy two separate waiting areas – one with large flat-panel TVs showing CNN, with sofas for lounging, current newspapers and periodicals, with pastries, chilled bottles of water and espresso available. The other area is designated a ‘quiet’area, intended for those who have work to do while waiting for their car to be serviced. The décor owes more to an established social club than an auto dealership – wood paneling, fine leather furniture and subdued lighting. There is wireless Internet access available; one wall has large windows which look out over the service area. On many weekdays you can get a shoeshine, compliments of Baker Motors.  Pay a visit on a Saturday, and you can even get a free massage while your Baker Motor Company-purchased car is washed free of charge.  These services extend even to buyers of pre-owned cars, and helps explain why Saturday morning at Baker's is a social event for casual and dedicated Charleston-area auto enthusiasts.

In common with many other dealers, Baker Motor Company provides a collect and drop-off service, so there is no need to make use of the exceptional facilities on offer. However, unlike any other dealership we have visited, the car can be serviced without it even leaving your driveway. “We provide pick-up and drop-off, for sure – we will load a loan car on a flatbed, take it to a customer’s home, bring their car back here and service it, then return it,” said Tommy. “But we also have mobile units, that can carry out the work at a client’s home, so the car doesn’t go anywhere. We really are committed to service – I know that a lot of people say that, but we mean it. We have a fleet of seventy cars available for loan – we have so many, we have to have a dispatcher to keep track of them all! We keep a large number of staff, so that we can be ready for almost anything. It goes back to the old philosophy that people work hard for their money, and they deserve to get that hard work paid back in return when they purchase things. An example of what we do is that we ‘re-deliver’ cars; when people buy a new car they’re so excited, they forget about half of what you tell them. So we go out and see them again a couple of weeks later, and go over things again.”

It’s worth spending a little time talking about Tommy himself. He is plainly a shrewd businessman, having built up a multi-million dollar business, and we found the story of how he came to such pre-eminence in Charleston fascinating. “After high school I spent four years in the Marine Corps, starting at the Recruitment Depot sixty miles from here, Parris Island,” he explained. “After that I went to The Citadel as a day student; I was selling cars in the summer, to help pay my way. That worked pretty well, and when I graduated, I decided to open a car dealership – I opened one in the smallest town in North Carolina, and I was probably the most under-capitalized dealer in the United States! But I made it work, and I managed to expand. At one stage, I had all these businesses, across three states – then one day I woke up, and decided I didn’t want to do that anymore; I was in my forties, and I wanted to spend time with my kids, I wanted a bit more from life than just owning a whole bunch of dealerships.”

“So I sold them off, and just kept Charleston; I coached my son, I went to horse shows, I watched my daughter do cheerleading in high school,” Tommy continued. “I also went back to school, doing six weeks each year. And I got into teaching – that’s my other passion. I teach a senior-level course on Entrepreneurship, a lot of which is explaining how to advance, and how to get out of the mess when things go wrong – because if you don’t mess up, you aren’t doing much!”

Tommy is very active in the local community – he is nearing the end of his second term chairing the board of the Medical University of South Carolina Children’s Hospital, and has previously chaired the board of Duke University’s Children’s Hospital. He’s also justifiably proud of the area; when asked what he would like readers to know about Charleston, he replied: “It’s the most polite city in the world – I really believe that. It’s a city you fall in love with – it gets you, it grips your heart. It’s not just a great golf course, or a great meal in the city, it’s the whole ambiance. People love the character of the city; I’ve been all over the world a few times, but this is a pretty special little area.”

Tommy’s Maserati dealership certainly is special. It occupies pride of place – it is the first brand you encounter when driving from downtown Charleston; it has a grand showroom dedicated to Maserati, with separate offices for the sales executives. Yet he is never satisfied; while we were there, he was musing over ways to improve the acoustics for the flat-panel displays set into the walls and how to further build his relationship with customers. He sees a great future for Maserati in the area. “I see it as being a natural for our complex, and a natural for who we are; it’s our first Italian brand,” he said. “There will be a time when people talk about us nationally, not so much for the number of cars we sell, but the way we do it. But we have to earn that – any time we put in a new product. We have to understand Maserati, the culture of the brand and of the client. We’re learning, and I love being the biggest student of all. As often as they will let me, I drive a Maserati; I wish I could take one on a trip, so I could really let that thing howl.”

Tommy Baker was the perfect host to us, amply demonstrating that Charleston is one of the most friendly and hospitable places you could visit. A successful businessman and devoted family man, he remains a ‘car guy’ at heart. The combination of Baker Motor Company and Maserati just might be a match made in heaven.