Euroclassics Porsche to become Porsche Richmond, build new $16M dealership in Midlo

A rendering of the forthcoming Porsche Richmond dealership that will rise at 11900 Midlothian Turnpike.

Richmond’s lone Porsche dealership is set to drop its longtime name as part of an eight-figure project that will replace its showroom and service center along Midlothian’s Motor Mile.

Euroclassics Porsche will be rebranding to Porsche Richmond as it kicks off a full rebuild of its home at 11900 Midlothian Turnpike in May.

The project will result in a new 38,000-square-foot facility, nearly three times larger than its current two-building home.

Mark Cooke, Euroclassics’ dealer principal and president, said the overhaul will make the Richmond location the first in Virginia built with the latest dealership design iterations from Porsche.

“We’ve had a building that we have renovated to look sort of like a Porsche dealership but never an out-of-the-box spec Porsche dealership,” Cooke said.

The project will take place in phases over the course of about 16 months so that the dealership can continue to operate while the new facility is built.

The first phase will involve tearing down half of Euroclassics’ current showroom building along with the vacant CarLotz building at 11944 Midlothian Turnpike, which Cooke also owns, and replacing it with Porsche Richmond’s new service department.

That phase will increase the dealership’s service bay count from eight to 18.

Once that portion is completed, the rest of the existing Euroclassics showroom will be torn down to make way for the rest of the new two-story showroom. The existing service building will remain open until construction is complete and Cooke said sales will be run out of a trailer temporarily.

An interior rendering of the new showroom.

In all, Cooke said he expects to spend $16 million on the project. He’s financing it through Fulton Bank. Locally based Liepertz Construction is the general contractor. Cooke also has enlisted Richmond’s Menlo Architecture, which will work with the Porsche specifications for the dealership design.

“It’s a lot of time and a lot of money but it’ll be worth it,” he said. “I think we’ve outgrown our current space and you either play the game or get out of the game. So it’s time to step up and build a facility.”

Cooke said the new design will give his dealership more room for additional vehicle inventory and also score points with Porsche corporate in the form of increased vehicle allocation by meeting the latest design standards. The dealership currently sells around 170 new and 200 used vehicles a year, Cooke said.

The new building will mark the next step in the evolution of the longtime Euroclassics business.

Mark Cooke

Cooke started the company in 1988 selling used European cars such as Mercedes, BMWs, Jaguars and a smattering of Porsches. The business started out in a smaller version of its current home.

In 2001, Cooke changed the business by purchasing the Porsche franchise and added on to the building three years later to make an official Porsche showroom. A renovation in 2015 kept the dealership up to snuff with Porsche’s standards, which at the time was the German auto giant’s third generation dealership design.

The new project will leapfrog the company up to Porsche’s fifth generation design.

A Richmond native and Trinity Episcocal School graduate, Cooke also owns local private jet charter company Million Air Richmond and Red River Foods, a supplier of nuts, fruits and other snacks. He also still has an ownership stake in Import Autohaus, which was his introduction to the car business when his father and a business partner bought it in 1985.

Cooke said his dad brought him into that business and Cooke eventually grew it to a multi-location chain of repair shops for European cars. Today it has three locations in the region.

With those many years in the industry in mind, Cooke said it’s bittersweet to be retiring the Euroclassics brand in favor of Porsche Richmond. He said the new name is part of a more consistent naming structure that Porsche wants on all its dealerships in the U.S.

“I’ll be sad to see it go,” Cooke said of the Euroclassics name. “We came up with that name. We’ve had it for a long time.”