Why Lamborghini Orange County Closed Their Doors

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Jan 13th 2009 at 10:01PM

In November, we mentioned that California's Lamborghini Orange County, the world's largest dealer of the exotic Italian cars, had suddenly closed up shop. Now the whole story is unfolding and it's quite intriguing. The OC Register checks out court documents accusing the owners of Lamborghini Orange County in Santa Ana of selling their cars at heavy discounts and not paying their creditor. A lawsuit filed by Volkswagen Credit Inc, says that it paid for Lamborghini O.C.'s cars in advance of sale and never received the $12 million owed for the vehicles.

In a separate suit, the owners of the dealerships, Vik Keuylian and his sisters Asdghig, Nora and Sossi Keuylian are also accused of defaulting on a $3 million loan from East-West Bank. And in Las Vegas, Stephen Cloobeck, owner of Diamond Resorts, is suing Vik Keuylian for $340,000 for taking his 2008 Lamborghini Murcielago and never paying him for it. The high-profile dealership was famous for its celebrity clientele some of whom may be driving cars that the dealer never paid for.

Tags: lamborghini, orange county, OrangeCounty

Filed under: Luxury Cars & Autos

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Steve Pollack Jan 14th 2009 2:08AM

They also have put one fo their homes up for sale in Laguna Hills
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/27641-Fargo-Rd-Laguna-Hills-CA-92653/25551793_zpid/

I think they strayed into real estate which led to their demise. Stay with what you know.

Spectacular Bid Jan 15th 2009 11:09AM

Questionable financial practices aside the economy continues to hurt any dealership no matter where they are in the US so OC Lambo was in for lean times as it is.

It's odd that Lamborgini didn't step in quietly and effectively take over as the owner of the franchise when things were amiss to ensure would-be buyers that all is fine. In fact its odd that Lamborghini NA didn't outright run or at least have a majority stake in that dealership territory.

Ferrari NA has since the 1980's cancelled the franchise - dealership agreements for many highly visible dealerships to not only further control their market but also protect their brand. Case in point the highly successful NYC territory once held by Kesseler Motors. Despite Kessler moving huge volumes of cars to Wall Street guys Ferrari took control and had to fight a lawsuit in the process.

So when Lamborghini has/had a goldmine in Orange County CA you'd think they would've had similar factory ownership of the franchise to begin with.