Karl Malone Auto Group buys Mike Hale Chevrolet - The Park Record

**The Karl Malone Auto Group has purchased Mike Hale Chevrolet, a business that has been in the Park City area since the 1930s.**
*Tanzi Propst/Park Record*

Mike Hale Chevrolet on Rasmussen Road is now Karl Malone Chevrolet, the newest iteration of a business that dates back to the 1930s.

The changeover began this summer and is expected to be finalized this week, said Cody Andersen, the dealership’s general manager and part of the new ownership group. It gives the Karl Malone Auto Group a foothold in Park City, which Andersen said it has long sought. And it complements the group’s other holdings, more than a dozen businesses that stretch from Louisiana and Arkansas to Idaho and Heber.

“(Malone) loved Park City, always wanted to be part of the community in Park City, and now he finally has his chance to be part of the community with the Chevy dealership,” he said.

Andersen said the dealership has expanded service hours to be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with the sales office open until 8 p.m. those days.

The dealership sells new Chevrolets and used vehicles of all kinds, he said. The most popular are larger SUVs — Suburbans and Tahoes — as well as heavy duty trucks.

“If we can get them, we’ll actually sell a lot of Corvettes,” he added.

The dealership is grappling with the same supply chain issues that are affecting the rest of the industry, he said. A shortage of microchips has led to a significant lack of new vehicles, with nearly all of the available vehicles already sold by the time they hit the lot.

“It’s not like it used to be, had 100 new cars on the lot, people could just walk through the lot,” he said. “Times have changed a little bit. … It’s something that every manufacturer is dealing with right now.”

Andersen thought the shortage would be temporary and expected the location, as a relatively new dealership, would receive “our fair share” of vehicles. And he said despite the shortage of cars, there is no shortage of people looking to buy.

There have been enough buyers interested in buying a Chevrolet in the Park City area to keep a franchise alive here for nearly 100 years.

Mike Hale said he bought the “Chevy store” from Bill Mawhinney in 1993, though not the gas station on Park Avenue where it was located. The location had been in business since 1936, Hale said, and a black-and-white photograph at the dealership shows it advertising Sinclair gasoline and the 1942 Chevrolet, which was coming soon.

Hale said the Park City skate park now covers the land where Mawhinney Motor once was on Park Avenue. A nearby parking lot is named for the Mawhinney family.

Hale said he wasn’t retiring and that he continues to own Mike Hale Acura in Murray, which he said was not for sale.

“I’ve lived in Summit County since the early ’90s and love Summit County, and it was great, I loved the Chevy store,” he said. “It’s just time. It’s time for me to pass the baton.”

Hale complimented the way the Karl Malone Auto Group conducts business and said all of the store’s employees were able to stay at the location even after the changeover.

“That was my baby. It meant a lot to me, this store. I wouldn’t sell it to anybody,” he said. “All those employees, been with me for years. Some of them 26 years. I wanted to make sure they were good.”

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