By Lauren K. Meade, Globe Correspondent  |  January 26, 2006

Stuart Carpenter, owner of Copley Motorcars, hasn't shaken hands 
with two-thirds of his clients. He hasn't even met them.

Most of his customers shop by phone or by computer mouse. Over the 
past decade, Carpenter has built a clientele that spans the continent. 
He ships the vehicles directly to his clients' doors in places as far 
away as California and British Columbia. Most of the cars he sells are 
used, but they're not the kind that you test by kicking the tires.

The Needham dealer buys and trades only rare or limited edition luxury 
cars, such as the 1997 Land Rover Defender 90 Wagon in portofino red -- 
selling for $43,800 -- or the fire engine red 1992 Ferrari 512 TR for 
$114,800. Some are antique; for instance, the 1948 MG TC for $34,800. 
Some are just plain goofy: his 1963 Austin Mini Moke in marine blue 
listed for $14,800.

Carpenter says his customers include well-known athletes, music industry 
professionals, and the head honchos in some of Boston's top companies 
(although he declines to divulge any names).

As an independent dealer, Carpenter doesn't have the constant stream of 
cars to sell from a major automaker. This alleviates stressful sales quotas, 
but it also means he has to buy a car for every one he sells. Carpenter, 
who has a showroom on Chestnut Street, estimated that he sells between 
15 and 20 vehicles per month.

Land Rovers and Range Rovers are his specialty -- ''They have a funky look, 
and everyone thinks you're a character when you drive them."

Over the past decade, Carpenter has developed a knack for scouring the 
country to find unusual cars. A recent favorite is the Vesuvius orange 
2006 Range Rover Sport S/C SE, of which only 200 will be sold this year 
in the United States, he said. In the first 90 days after they were released, 
Carpenter bought 13 of them.

Pricing the vehicles is a complex algorithm of many factors: mileage, age, 
condition, rareness.  For example, Carpenter is offering a 1998 993 Porsche 
C4S for $60,000, while a 2001 Porsche 996 C4 coupe is priced at $46,000. The 
older car has only 14,000 miles on it and was manufactured in the last year 
of its model designation. It also was built in the last year that Porsche 
used air-cooled engines, Carpenter said.  ''It's not because the 2001 model 
is less special. There are just more of them," Carpenter said.

Inside the airy showroom, just beyond the 1966 Ford Shelby Mustang GT350 in 
Acapulco blue and the white Porsche and the red Ferrari, Carpenter is doing 
what he does for most of the day: chatting up old clients and courting new 
ones over the phone.

Piles of file folders, stacks of client business cards, his black flat-screen 
monitor and pens in neat vertical rows claim nearly all of the real estate on 
his massive mahogany desk. His Instant Messenger pings in the background.

Two teenagers walk in on their way to McDonald's.  ''My friend told me there's
a Rolls-Royce in here," said Aaron Niles, 14. The rumors were incorrect, but 
the boys still enjoyed inspecting the Ferrari parked near Carpenter's desk.

Part of the appeal of Copley Motorcars is that Carpenter's customers -- 
predominantly men -- can buy the car of their dreams, and then sell it back 
to the dealer when they crave something new.

Westborough resident Mark Neil has bought at least 30 cars from Copley Motorcars 
in the past decade, averaging three cars per year, selling many of them back to 
Carpenter. At one point, Neil owned eight cars. His buys are usually quick, often 
impulsive, he said. Sometimes he'll sell Carpenter one car and get two in return.

''It drives my insurance company crazy because there's always stuff coming off and 
on my policy," said Neil, an associate general counsel for IBM.

Neil gets revved by the craftsmanship, not just the attention he gets on the Mass 
Pike. He has turned heads with his two favorite buys: a Hummer H1 and a 1995 Land 
Rover 110 turbo diesel, which had been specially imported into the United States, 
he said.  Carpenter ''called me as soon as he got it," Neil said of the 110.

The spirit of buying and selling has reached beyond Carpenter's dealership into Neil's 
office, where he and several colleagues have formed small trading circles of their own. 
Neil once swapped a Porsche 911, which he had purchased from Copley, for a Mercedes 
owned by an IBM sales executive. He later sold the Mercedes to Copley.

Neil's relationship with his car dealer has grown into a friendship, so much so that 
Neil's wife even invited Carpenter and his wife, Caren, to his surprise 40th birthday 
party.  ''I walked in and there was Stuart and Caren along with my family and friends," 
Neil said.  Carpenter gave him a blown-up photograph of his favorite Land Rover, which 
still is hanging on the wall over his piano.

Carpenter has wondered why people would plunk down $100,000 for a car they've never taken 
for a test drive or even sat in to smell the leather interior. But as a businessman, he 
can relate.

''I buy almost everything sight unseen as well," he said. ''I bought two Land Rovers from 
someone in San Antonio. The fellow e-mailed me pictures of the cars, sent the titles and 
the money. I sent the truck [to pick them up]. The cars arrived. They were beautiful."

Carpenter, 47, said he's been fortunate over the years not to encounter many scoundrels. 
He said on two occasions he lost money on bad deals. Though he didn't wish to elaborate, 
Carpenter called them ''learning experiences," and said he has become adept at sensing 
whether a vehicle is a lemon or a jewel just by examining the e-mailed photos and scrut-
inizing the car's title and its history.

''You talk 5 to 10 minutes online, and you have a good feeling. I expect to service the 
cars" before being able to sell them, he said.  Over the years, Carpenter has built up a 
trusty network of buyers and sellers, many of whom are car dealers themselves. ''They know 
what I like," he said.

The dealership's entire staff is Carpenter and his associate Keith Humphrey, 24.  Caren 
Carpenter, 45, often pops into the showroom after getting off work at a Newton preschool. 
She helps with the bookkeeping and runs errands. ''Really and truly we want him on the 
phone," she said of her husband.

With just Carpenter and Humphrey mainly running the show, they work up to 12 hours a day, 
six days a week.  ''I couldn't do the business I do without the Internet," Carpenter said. 
He used to go to Out of Town News in Cambridge every Sunday and scour the classifieds in 
The New York Times, the Houston Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times. Now he scans the 
newspaper car listings online.

Carpenter grew up in Amherst and ventured away from home in his late teens to Hartford, 
where he worked as a caddy and met Caren. He never went to college, doubting that he would 
have had the patience to apply himself.

Though his childhood love was Mustang convertibles, his first car was an unremarkable $600 
Ford Gran Torino, a model later made famous by ''Starsky and Hutch." Still, Carpenter said 
his passion for cars has its limits.

''My other dealer friends are so passionate about them. They said I looked at cars like 
chunks of iron," Carpenter said.

After spending most of his 20s at a Hartford country club -- working his way up from caddy 
to golf pro -- Carpenter decided to move on to a more lucrative career. He was inspired by 
a few friends who were car dealers to enter the field. He got a job in Boston selling new 
BMWs and Jaguars at a traditional dealership.

''I figured if I'm going to be in the car business, I might as well sell nice cars," he said.

Weary of the confrontational relationship between sellers and buyers, Carpenter opened a 
showroom in Copley Square in 1995 on the premise that he'd sell hard-to-find cars that people 
have to have.

''I want to be where other people aren't," he said. ''Boston is a big BMW town. I don't sell 
them. Why? Because there's a jillion of them."

People often ask Carpenter why he bothers having a showroom if most of his customers live 
outside Massachusetts.  ''I have to like the place I work," he said. ''I could do it in a 
dingy warehouse in the middle of an office park, but I don't want to. Who wants to go to 
work in a lousy warehouse?"

He moved into the Chestnut Street location -- formerly the Salamone Toyota dealership -- 
in October because it offers more space for showing cars and the luxury of working 1 
1/2 miles from his home.

Caren Carpenter describes her husband as ''methodical." Every day he has the same breakfast: 
two English muffins and yogurt, having been awakened at 5 a.m. by their beagles, Rosie and 
Buddy. He's out the door and in the office by 7 a.m. When he cooks, she said, he lines up 
all the ingredients -- already measured out -- in front of him before beginning.

''He's a one-task guy. He can only concentrate on one thing at a time," she said.

She said they are alike in many ways after 18 years of marriage, though their taste in cars 
differs. Stuart is a Land Rover guy. She prefers her Volvo Cross Country.

''In the summer I tooted around in a Mercedes convertible. That's what's fun about being 
married to a car guy," she said.

Though it's just the two of them, Stuart carts around his beagles in a Land Rover. In 
summers, he prefers vintage convertibles.

Caren is irked by the stereotype that used car salesmen are pushy or dishonest. ''The 
statement is an unfair categorization," she said. ''Every industry has bad apples."

Stuart takes the reputation with a grain of salt. Aggressiveness is the nature of the game -- 
and that's how he scores the rarest of gems. But he describes his customer interactions as 
''low-key and nonconfrontational." He said he follows their lead if they want to make a quick 
deal or travel at a slower pace, and recalled exchanging 40 e-mails with one customer before 
a sale.

The phone rings in Copley Motorcars. A customer is inquiring about a bronze 1960 Land Rover.
''It's a wonderful little car. It's got a great history. Give me a little bit and I'll send 
you some pictures," Carpenter told him.

''This man and I talked a year ago," he later said. ''We talked and didn't do anything. He 
calls a year later. He probably remembers that I was a nice guy. It's good for business to 
be nice to people." 

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.




Q & A
Stuart Carpenter of Copley Motorcars
By Lauren K. Meade, Globe Correspondent  |  January 26, 2006

Q. What is your favorite among all the cars that you ever sold?
A. A 1997 Land Rover Defender 90 Limited Edition, #300/300. I 
purchased it from a collector with 1,100 miles on it in the spring 
of 2004. I then sold it to another collector in Greenwich, Conn., 
who sold it back to me with 1,400 miles and it now sits with another 
collector client of mine in Naples, Fla. He recently indicated that 
he may want to sell it back to me.

Q. What was the most expensive car you've sold?
A. A $300,000 1955 Austin Healey 100S. The 100S was only manufactured 
in 1955, and only 55 were produced.

Q. What was the least expensive car you've sold?
A. An $800 faded green 1964 Land Rover Series IIA 109. This was just 
an awful Land Rover but it did run, drive, and stop. The fellow I sold 
it to was thrilled, as he was going to restore it.

Q. What is the oldest car you've sold?
A. For some reason, 1955 seems to be the year for me. The 1955 Austin 
Healey 100S, a 1955 Austin Healey 100M, and a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300S 
Cabriolet.

Q. What was your quickest sale?
A. It happens regularly that someone will say ''I'll buy it" in the first 
phone conversation or the first e-mail. But I guess in the Internet era 
we're living in, the quickest sale is the one on eBay where someone clicks 
Buy It Now. It's always fun to come into my showroom in the morning and 
find out via e-mail that someone has purchased a car from me overnight.

Q. What was your longest sale?
A. Eighteen months. There is a fellow from Alabama that I started speaking 
with in the spring of 2004. Of course, I was excited to be selling a car to 
him, but I was more excited about his trade-in: a 1977 Toyota Land Cruiser 
FJ40 that had been fully restored. He kept wanting to do the deal but was 
reluctant to trade the FJ40, having recently spent $100,000 on the restoration. 
In September of 2005, he finally selected a Defender 90 and shipped me his FJ40. 
Oddly enough, before we arranged transport of his new Defender to Alabama, he 
changed his mind and sold the Defender back to me. 

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.