Monday, November 28, 2022

King Buick GMC closes in Rockville (Photos)


It's the end of an era at King Buick GMC at 16200 Frederick Road in Rockville. The dealership has closed permanently, although some vehicle inventory remains on the property. King Motor Company was born in 1928, but it was in the 1950s that King family scion Conrad V. Aschenbach opened his first dealership in Olde Towne Gaithersburg. His son, Bill Aschenbach, said the family was forced to sell the dealership because it could not find another location in the area. The dealership's property will become an EYA townhome development, and be annexed into the City of Rockville.


Bill Aschenbach says that he will join a new dealership group founded by his son, Conrad. That group expects to have nine dealerships by December 31 of this year. The existing King franchise is being acquired by Criswell Automotive at its Gaithersburg Chevrolet Buick GMC dealership. But many of the King employees from this location will be moving to the Ideal Hyundai Buick GMC dealership in Frederick, Maryland, Aschenbach said.  


This is the second venerable car dealership to be lost along this stretch of MD 355 in the last decade. Reed Brothers Dodge at 15955 Frederick Road was the first Dodge dealer in Montgomery County. Today, the Bainbridge Shady Grove apartments stand on its former site.








6 comments:

  1. "the family was forced to sell the dealership because it could not find another location in the area."

    Well, kinda. They purposefully sold the land to EYA to make a boatload of money. No one forced them to do that.

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  2. Buick is the car of the elderly!

    Yea Bill isnt beint totally honest. He made ALOT selling the land to EYA. Has MoCo already approves apts/townhomes to be built here?

    How do we find out how much Bill earned from this sale.

    Frederick is a bit far so hopefully the employees are able to drive their and keep their jobs.

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    1. Bill didn't own King; his father, Conrad Sr did. Bill just ran it.
      Unfortunately, the dealership hadn't been making any profit for the last 7 years in was in business. Longtime service manager John Bierman let the technicians do whatever they want, charge whatever they want and scared a lot of good customers away. When they lost Saturn, they lost a lot of profit, and they never recovered from that loss. Greedy technicians with management that turned the other cheek led to the death of this dealership. Very sad. Bill never wanted to run a dealership; he just wants to be a farmer. Good guy. Stuck in the family. Doesn't deserve the bad press he gets. Conrad Sr is the driving force behind the empire.

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    2. Maryland real estate records show that the sale closed on 1/31/23 for$11,489,999 for a little over 10 acres.

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  3. I just looked up 16200 Fred Ave. It is 10min from ShadyG metro so I get why EYA wants this land. Across the street I see only trees. Who owns that land?

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