TAMPA - What does the 27-year-old son of a Tampa Bay area car dealer do after he has trained as an outdoor guide in Alaska and become an off-road 4x4 fanatic in the Rockies?
Talk about blending passion and heritage. Michael Lokey, with backing from his dad, Tom Lokey, recently acquired the Hillsborough County rights to sell a brand new make of rugged sport-utility vehicle to Florida sports enthusiasts, as well as to those who just fancy driving such vehicles.
The biggest appeal? This SUV, called the Cross Lander 244X, will sell for a base price of about $20,000.
"It's a tank," laughs the enthusiastic younger Lokey, who got his first test drive of the Cross Lander on a visit to Brazil.
Here's the twist. The Cross Lander SUV is based on the Aro vehicle from Romania. Before you start whispering not another Yugo - the much-maligned Yugoslavian import that went on sale for $3,990 in 1985 as the cheapest car sold in the United States - guess again. Times are changing.
Aro S.A. (Auto Romania) was the national Romanian automotive company that has manufactured military and off-road vehicles and light trucks for more than 50 years.
The vehicle caught the eye of Cuban-born John Perez, a former auto dealer in Atlanta who owned part of the Coca-Cola distribution business in eastern Europe.
To make short a story a decade in the making, Perez helped found and organize a U.S. business in Miami called Cross Lander USA. The privately held company purchased a majority stake in the Aro company as part of Romania's efforts to privatize its industries.
Now the first U.S.-bound Cross Lander is finalizing its certification from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Once certified, manufacturing to U.S. specifications will begin at the Romania plant. The first SUVs should arrive for sale in this country by late summer or early fall.
Is another SUV - from Romania, no less - in the plentiful U.S. market a big gamble?
Sure, says 60-year-old Tom Lokey. He sold his last area dealership (Honda) in 1998 but was convinced by son Michael to leave semiretirement and get back in the game. "The Cross Lander has never been sold in the U.S. There certainly is some risk."
Got that right. It's going to be a formidable task to get the positive word out about a product from Romania, a country that has not had a winning export since Nadia Comaneci took the women's gymnastics world by storm at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.
On the other hand, there are plenty of experienced automotive veterans who like what they see in the Cross Lander and its prospects in this country. More than 113 dealers in 34 states have signed up to sell the Cross Lander so far.
Unlike most dealers that will sell the Cross Lander as a new brand at an existing dealership, the Lokeys are building a facility just north of I-275 on N. Dale Mabry that will only sell the Cross Lander and truck accessories.
In Pinellas County, Crown Auto has the rights to sell the Cross Lander from one of its existing St. Petersburg facilities on 34th Street N. Jim Myers, Crown Auto Dealership Group chief operating officer, says his company was impressed with the vehicle and the Cross Lander USA team bringing it into this country.
"It's got the look of a Hummer or a Land Rover but not nearly the price," Myers says. "That's the neat thing about the vehicle. There really is no competition in that price range."
For Crown, the Cross Lander is its first new vehicle brand in at least a decade. Not all new brands make it, Myers says, citing Crown's experience with the Yugo and Daihatsu. But the Crown executive has high hopes for the new SUV.
"The people who are behind the Cross Lander have been in the car business in this country for some time. They have no interest in bringing in a substandard product."
At Cross Lander USA in Miami, president Bill Goetze is an old hand at introducing new imports to the U.S. auto market. He helped establish Mazda in the United States, and later worked with Subaru. He thinks the SUV from Romania will be a winner.
The no-frills, steel-body Cross Lander seats five, has a 207-horsepower V6 engine, and (unofficially) gets about 19 miles per gallon. The company will ship the Cross Lander to the U.S. market in modest volumes at first to insure quality control at the production plant in Romania. The vehicle will come with a three-year, 36-month warranty.
The Cross Lander has a long heritage as a military vehicle, Goetze says. And military vehicles - including the Jeep, the Land Rover and the Hummer - have all been successful introductions.
"Those vehicles have gone upscale over the years," he says. "That leaves a niche for the Cross Lander, an affordable off-road vehicle that not only appeals to the outdoorsman, sportsman and rancher but also to the younger buyer."
And to younger dealers. Tampa's Michael Lokey, who has banned neckties from his Dale Mabry site, sees a solid niche market of buyers who will want their Cross Landers well equipped with custom seats, roof racks, grill guards or even body armor.
He hopes to take Cross Lander converts into Florida's backwoods to show them how to enjoy their vehicles responsibly, without messing up Florida's countryside.
"We want to be like the Bill Jackson's for off-road outfitting," Lokey says.
Sounds good, dude. Father Tom Lokey likes his son's energy but is old enough to recall a nervous twinge from the days of the ill-fated Yugo. How will the SUV be received once it finally hits the U.S. market?
"There's no answer yet if this will be easy," says the voice of experience.
