Starting a dealership from scratch means building the brand, the team and the customer base all at once, with no name recognition to lean on. On today’s edition of CBT Live, Mike Lucki and Sefi Adasi Lucki, Co-Owners of Lucki Mazda of Woodbridge, join us to discuss their new open-point store and how they built it around their tagline, “Driven by Respect.”
Mike Lucki is a third-generation dealer who taught at the NADA Academy before buying Riverhead Mazda in New York and building it into an open-point himself. Mazda later asked what he wanted next, and he said he wanted to be closer to home in the DC area, which led to Woodbridge, Virginia. His wife, Sefi Adasi Lucki, came from a different world entirely, moving from teaching and product management at Lenovo into the family business as controller. She credited industry groups like ASOTU and the Women of Color Automotive Network (WOCAN) for showing her what was possible in retail auto.
Affordability remains the top concern the Luckis’ hear from customers, and leasing has become a key part of the answer. Their Virginia store’s lease penetration runs in the single digits, compared with roughly 70% at their former New York store. Tariffs have also reshaped Mazda’s incentives, favoring vehicles built in the U.S. and Japan over Mexico-built models like the CX-30.
