Auto dealer Luis Somoano expanded his South Florida portfolio by paying $21.5 million for a Ford retail site in Hialeah previously owned for 40 years by the late car selling mogul Gus Machado and his family.
An entity managed by Doral-based Somaono, who owns two other dealerships in Miami-Dade County, paid $2.2 million above the previous sale price less than two years ago. Somaono’s entity also assumed a $15.4 million loan with City National Bank of Florida, records and real estate database Vizzda show.
The seller, an entity managed by Victor Benitez, vice president of Gus Machado Ford, paid $19.3 million for the 5.7-acre site in September 2024, records show. The property includes three buildings completed in 1969, including a two-story showroom.
Gus Machado died in 2022.
It’s the second dealership Somaono has purchased that was previously tied to Machado. In 2023, he purchased the land underneath his Ford of Kendall auto retail site for $20 million from entities managed by Machado’s widow, Lilliam Machado. Somoano acquired the business operations for Ford of Kendall in 2019 from Machado.
Somaono also owns a Lincoln Mercury dealership in Doral. His Hialeah purchase marks the first major car dealership trade since billionaire auto magnate Terry Taylor sold two Nissan sites in Palm Beach County a year ago. Alpharetta, Georgia-based Krause Automotive Group bought the dealerships in March of last year for a combined $30.5 million.
A month later, in another Palm Beach County auto-related deal, Copart dropped $65 million for a 40.3-acre industrial yard. Copart, a publicly traded firm based in Dallas that specializes in reselling repossessed and salvaged cars and trucks, bought the site to store and sell used vehicles.
In June, Miami-based investor Jon Samuel picked up a shuttered car lot in West Palm Beach previously operated by Off Lease Only, a used auto dealer that shut down operations in 2023. Samuel paid $24 million for the 14.7-acre site.
