Why ‘humble kid from the North End’ says he sold his Boise-area car dealerships
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kendall Auto Group acquired Bronco Motors' five Treasure Valley locations in July.
- All 150+ Bronco Motors employees were offered jobs and most are expected to stay.
- Grant Petersen Jr. will remain in a consulting role and lease property to Kendall.
Grant Petersen Jr. wasn’t looking to sell his family’s longtime auto business. That is, until the right buyer came along.
Petersen has sold Bronco Motors, a mainstay in the Treasure Valley new- and used-car business for over five decades, to Meridian-based Kendall Auto Group, one of the largest privately owned dealership groups in the Pacific Northwest. Bronco Motors was founded by Petersen’s father in downtown Boise in 1971.
“It just fit together,” Petersen told the Idaho Statesman by phone. “I’ve had lots of people try to buy my company over the years and I’ve never been a seller. I’ve always been a buyer. But this time it was just different.”
Bronco Motors sold its five locations in Boise and Nampa, including Hyundai, Nissan and Infiniti dealerships, in late July to Kendall, according to a news release from the companies.
Petersen said initial conversations with Kendall began last year after he sold the group the former Bronco Motors Mitsubishi dealership at the Idaho Center Auto Mall in August 2024. As he got to know the group better, the stars began to align, he said.
He said Kendall’s willingness to maintain Bronco Motors’s legacy of sponsorships — from the Idaho Shakespeare Festival to the Western Idaho Fair to the Twilight Criterium — convinced him it was a match.
“I told them, ‘These are things we do, and we expect you guys to do them, too,’” Petersen said. “They didn’t hesitate at all. They were all in.”
Petersen said he had several family meetings with his son and daughter, who’ve pursued other ventures, and their mother, before coming to a decision. He told the Statesman a confidentiality agreement prohibited him from disclosing the purchase price or other terms of the deal.
“We’ve always been a real boutique, customer service-oriented, high-touch, you know, going the extra mile to take care of our customers and our employees, kind of business,” Petersen said. “And we just felt that same vibe with the Kendall family.”
Plus, he said, if you’re not growing, you’re dying.
Bronco Motors had expanded until it had seven locations in the Treasure Valley, which was more locations than any other company in the area had at the time. But there wasn’t a lot of room to keep growing, he said.
Before the sale, the business had 150-160 employees. All were offered jobs with Kendall, he said. Kendall said in the release that it expects most to stay on. The group already had over 3,000 employees spanning five states, according to Petersen.
“These dealerships will complement our existing dealerships in the Treasure Valley,” Kendall CEO David Blewett said. “We are committed to our home state of Idaho and the Treasure Valley.”
The deal significantly increases Kendall’s footprint in the Boise area. Before the acquisition, Kendall had six dealerships in the Treasure Valley, including Kendall Ford of Meridian, Kendall GM of Nampa, Kendall Kia of Nampa, the Kendall Value Lot, the Kendall Used Superstore and, most recently, the Kendall Ford Commercial and RV Service Center.
Petersen plans to stay on with Kendall in a consulting role for the foreseeable future to facilitate the transition.
He and his family still own the properties the Bronco Motors dealerships sat on and are now leasing them to Kendall, which took over operations on July 21.
“It’s bittersweet. I’m not going to tell you that it’s not,” Petersen said. “But for a humble kid from the North End, that grew up on a gravel car lot on Main Street, having our family company become part of something bigger with the Kendall family dealerships is really something special.”
This story was originally published August 27, 2025 at 1:00 PM.
