ICONIC German luxury brand BMW marked its 100th anniversary on Monday. That milestone also coincided with the opening of Autobahn — ATL Automotive’s BMW and MINI division — on Orchard Road in Kingston.

Adam Stewart, CEO of Sandals/ATL Group, felt the timing was quite significant for his company’s opening and saw it as a major achievement.

“The brand was recently voted one of the top 10 in the world. It’s a brand Jamaica and the Caribbean loves. For us, it’s a humbling experience to be afforded the ability to represent them and we’re privileged that BMW felt we’re the right business to carry the brand forward,” Stewart told

Auto.

“Representing them is a major achievement not only for ATL Automotive. It demonstrates the strength of Jamaican leadership…it’s the first time that a Jamaican entity has stepped into a regional role as a master dealer for an automotive brand, particularly a global automotive brand,” he continued.

Under the acquisition terms, Autobahn will serve as a central hub to include the distribution of cars, parts and service support in Jamaica. Next month it will assume the role of master dealer for the Caribbean region with an additional nine other countries: Trinidad and Tobago, The Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Barbados, Aruba, St Lucia, Suriname, and Antigua.

The CEO said he was assembling an experienced team to handle regional aspects of the business, as well as absorbing 30 team members from the previous dealer, Stewart Auto Sales Limited.

“We brought over quite a lot of the team and we’re putting the ATL spin on them. They’ve all been through the first phase of ATL’s Academy of Excellence, and I think we’ve ended up with a great team and a great enterprise. We’re gonna serve Jamaica at a higher level…it’s already started,” he said.

Stewart said the Orchard Road location was temporary and ground will be broken “150 days” as of Monday.

“We’re gonna build a brand new state-of-the-art showroom…150 days in the ground from now and a year’s worth of construction…We’re gonna do it ATL style … similar to what we did with Volkwagen and Audi… world class! It will be in keeping with BMW’s corporate imagining. There’ll also be a Montego Bay sales and service facility,” he said.

The CEO said consumers should feel more confident in the BMW brand now that it is backed by the ATL Group.

“Consumers will see a higher level of professionalism, a higher level of customer experience, and feel more confident in the BMW brand more than a week ago, simply by virtue of the fact that it is backed by the ATL Group and what it represents,” he said.

Matthew Cripps, ATL Group general manager, said Autobahn has hit the ground running.

“It’s been a long 14-month chase, but we’ve eventually got there. We started the quest for BMW in 2014,” he said. “We have some new models [that] are coming: the brand new M2 and the X4M. We’ve ordered a number of M4s and had a number of M4s sold. We’ll be pushing the X5 seven-seat package and hoping to sell that big,” he said.

In December 2015, ATL Automotive made the announcement that it would be assuming control of the brands, giving it a 25 per cent share of the overall market.

Started in 1997, ATL Automotive is also the authorised new-car distributor of Honda, Audi and Volkswagen brands. The company operates from its state-of-the-art showrooms in Kingston and Montego Bay.