Dave Hepburn hones his craft
Toronto dealer thinks small for big results

Woodland Chev is not a small dealer. It ranks about mid-pack in the GTA, which makes it a fairly big operation. But take dealer Dave Hepburn's guided wander around the place without knowing where you are, and it could easily be small town Canada.

Woodland is located in the heart of one of Toronto's car enclaves, about half an accelerator stomp from Highway 400 and Highway 7, just around the corner from the late Al Palladini's. Woodland's neighbours include Remo Ferri's BMW store and several others.

Hepburn's approach to the operation and his personal life is folksy and low key. Not that Dave is a lightweight - he's been president of the Toronto-area GM Dealers Association and held other hats within the GM dealer ranks. But in a day of multi-franchise operators and pinstriped MBAs, Dave Hepburn is old school and proud of it. He runs one store, mostly in shirtsleeves, and describes his place as a small town operation even though it's in the big city. The whole staff seems to reflect that approach.

At most dealerships, for example, customers are banned from the service area. But Hepburn encourages them to come in and see what's happening - to see the old parts and understand what's going on. "I would want that," he explains.

Small wonder. As a young car buff Hepburn always enjoyed working on cars. He dabbled in racing until his ex-wife beat him on the drag strip. He always thought the car business was exciting, with a wide variety of jobs and new product every year. "The only more exciting businesses are illegal," he says.

Hepburn followed in his dad's engineering shoes, but did his mechanical engineering degree at the GM Institute in Flint, Michigan. After graduation he worked as a plant engineer in Oshawa until - as the story frequently goes - he met a girl. It was her father, who worked in the marketing department at GM, who influenced Hepburn's career. Dropping his engineer's slide rule, Hepburn spent the next 25 years rising to national director of marketing for GM Canada.

Fortunately, as a lover of cars, and GM cars in particular with a series of Corvette restorations as proof, Hepburn was willing to put in the long hours and hold out for better days, which arrived some five years later. Life became good and has stayed pretty fine. And perception became reality - the day I spoke with Hepburn he was heading to Florida to purchase his next boat.

From his early days at the family cottage on Clear Lake, north of Peterborough, Hepburn had boat lust. His first boat was a 26-foot Liberator with two big block Chevy engines - liberating indeed.

After relocating to an Etobicoke condo overlooking the boat clubs at the foot of Park Lawn Rd., Hepburn stepped up to a glitzy 42-foot Scarab, a larger, hot looking boat called "Never Say Never" that he uses as an escape from business. From Etobicoke, it takes him to the Toronto Islands or east to the 1,000 Islands. These are hardly exotic destinations, but then Hepburn isn't an exotic kind of guy.

He bought both boats pre-owned, to use the dealer vernacular. On the Florida excursion, he is looking at a 40-foot Formula Thunderbird SS with twin GM 502 cube blocks in its MerCruisers. It too will be named "Never Say Never."

Life is good. "I don't want more dealerships; I don't want it more complicated," says Hepburn. "I think one day it would be great to have a motorhome to tour the southern states and maybe go up to Alaska.

It's not about making money so much. I don't like meetings, I like to manage by walking around."

In this day of mega business and the Lord Blacks of this world, Dave Hepburn seems strangely out of date - in a good way!