Auto dealer Luis Somoano has expanded his holdings in South Florida with the purchase of a Ford dealership site in Hialeah for $21.5 million. The property was previously owned by the late Gus Machado and his family for four decades.
Records show that an entity managed by Somoano, who is based in Doral and owns two other dealerships in Miami-Dade County, paid $2.2 million more than the price from less than two years ago. The deal also involved assuming a $15.4 million loan from City National Bank of Florida, according to documents and information from real estate database Vizzda.
The seller was an entity managed by Victor Benitez, vice president of Gus Machado Ford. This group had acquired the 5.7-acre property for $19.3 million in September 2024. The site includes three buildings constructed in 1969, among them a two-story showroom.
Gus Machado passed away in 2022.
This marks the second time Somoano has purchased a dealership linked to Machado. In 2023, he bought the land beneath his Ford of Kendall retail location for $20 million from entities managed by Lilliam Machado, Gus Machado’s widow. Somoano had previously acquired the business operations at Ford of Kendall from Machado in 2019.
Somoano’s portfolio also includes a Lincoln Mercury dealership located in Doral. The recent acquisition is notable as it is the first significant car dealership transaction since billionaire Terry Taylor sold two Nissan dealerships in Palm Beach County last year. Those properties were bought by Krause Automotive Group, based in Alpharetta, Georgia, for a total of $30.5 million.
Shortly after that transaction, Copart—a Dallas-based public company specializing in reselling repossessed and salvaged vehicles—purchased a 40.3-acre industrial yard in Palm Beach County for $65 million to store and sell used cars and trucks.
In June, Miami investor Jon Samuel acquired a closed car lot in West Palm Beach that had been operated by Off Lease Only before its closure in 2023; Samuel paid $24 million for the 14.7-acre property.
