This article just came out and it appears the owner of the 10 store acquired chain is needed to help develop relationships with Goodyear.......give me a break. If that's the case, who's getting fired since they were unable to use the clout of 550 stores that this guy had with just 10.......$14 million in sales versus $2 BILLION........AND PBY expects to learn from these guys....and keep the owner on board while he is their competitor.....and owns a competing autoparts company (MIGHTY)......as I have said, PBY continues to have the weakest management team in the autoparts business (and service).....and this article reaffirms. Just think if PBY actually had competent leadership.......DaninFW


"Florida Tire owner Doug Bolt—who established the dealership in 1987 and built it into a 10-store chain over the following 22 years—will join Pep Boys to serve as a liaison between the retail chain and Goodyear. Mr. Cirelli said historically Pep Boys has not done a lot of business with Goodyear, and given Mr. Bolt’s experience working with the Akron-based tire maker, it seemed like a good opportunity.

“It took a lot to get me off my president of Florida Tire chair to go work for somebody,” Mr. Bolt said. “I’ve been my own boss for 30 years.”

At first, Mr. Bolt—who told Tire Business that Florida Tire will always have “a warm place” in his heart—had no interest in selling to Pep Boys, but “management and responsibility pressures were mounting.”

“We grew for five years very nicely and (selling the business) gave me an opportunity to grow further and shrug off a lot of responsibilities that I felt need to be done—day-to-day things—but it allowed me to grow individually and grow with (Pep Boys),” Mr. Bolt said.

Mr. Bolt added that a “huge component” of his decision to sell his chain to Pep Boys was when the company revealed it wanted him to stay on to help build a stronger relationship with Goodyear. “I think that’s what really won me over,” he said.

Mr. Bolt’s career in the vehicle service industry dates back to 1973 when he won first place in New Jersey in a “Plymouth Trouble Shooting Contest.” He worked as an automotive technician at his uncle’s service station in that state before moving on to a different service station, where he was promoted to assistant shop manager after seven years.

In 1979, he purchased his first business, a small service station in New Jersey with two bays, which soon developed a reputation for top quality auto service and repairs. He moved his family to Florida in 1987 and opened his first Florida Tire outlet.

Among the stores that Mr. Bolt sold is one in Celebration, Fla., a planned community near Orlando that was the vision of Walt Disney when he was developing Walt Disney World in the late 1960s.

That store—resembling a Kentucky horse stable, complete with a tin roof, cupolas, barn doors and gooseneck-style lighting—was designed to fit into Celebration’s architecture. The 10-bay outlet has on display a 1/14th-scale replica of a Goodyear blimp built to withstand hurricane-force winds."