Car Dealership Model
Consumer Financial Model (Free Excel Download)
Forecast dealership performance through vehicle volume, gross profit, financing and insurance income, service departments, inventory turns, floorplan interest, and cash flow.
professionals from Deloitte
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About this model
This model helps you understand a car dealership across new and used vehicle sales, financing and insurance products, servicing, and parts. It brings sales volume and inventory investment together with the sales, service, and overhead costs that support the business.
Use it to assess an acquisition, a new franchise, or a growth plan. Test demand, pricing, used-car mix, and service activity to see their impact on profitability, cash flow, and value.
What every model includes
Live formulas, no hardcoded values
Outputs are driven by live formulas, so the workbook updates from its assumptions instead of relying on hardcoded results.
All assumptions in one tab
Inputs are clearly marked in the Assumptions tab and separated from calculations, making it clear what to change and what to leave intact.
Statements always balancing
For integrated-statement models, the balance sheet, cash flow, and supporting schedules tie through properly.
Distinct schedules for clarity
Debt, working capital, taxes, and cash flow can get messy quickly. We group calculations in clear schedules, not across disconnected tabs.
No hidden macros or external links
There are no unexplained external workbook links or macros to undermine auditability or portability.
Changes flow through the model
Update a key driver and see the impact carry through the forecast, financing, and return outputs. We never use hardcoded numbers in formulas.
What's inside the Car Dealership Model
- Store inputs: Year-1 stores, new stores per year, new units per store, same-store unit growth, used-to-new ratio
- Fixed-ops inputs: repair orders per store, RO growth, days supply of new inventory
- Pricing: new and used vehicle ASP, F&I income per unit, revenue per repair order, price escalation
- Gross margins by department: new vehicle, used vehicle, finance & insurance, parts & service
- Cost structure: SG&A lines as a percentage of gross profit, depreciation, tax
- Capital and working capital: maintenance capex, build-out cost per store, NWC, base-year revenue
- Valuation: WACC, terminal growth, net debt, shares outstanding
- Throughput sheet: store roll-forward, new and used units, repair orders, average new-inventory schedule
Car Dealership Financial Model: How the Operating Model and DCF Work
This car dealership financial model is a seven-year operating forecast and unlevered DCF for a franchised automotive retailer. It builds throughput from stores and units, translates that into department revenue and gross profit, and flows to free cash flow and enterprise value.
The structure makes the gross-profit pyramid explicit.
Operating drivers that shape the dealership forecast
The model begins with a store roll-forward and a units-retailed build. Opening stores plus new stores determine closing stores.
- New units equal closing stores times new units per store times same-store growth. Used units are new units multiplied by a used-to-new ratio, giving total units retailed.
- Separately, service repair orders are closing stores times repair orders per store times RO growth. An average new-inventory schedule links days supply to the throughput plan.
Pricing, F&I per unit, revenue per repair order and price escalation convert these volumes into revenue, while gross margins and SG&A percentages shape profitability.
From throughput to department revenue and gross profit
Revenue is built by department: new vehicle sales, used vehicle sales, finance and insurance income per unit retailed, and fixed operations (parts and service) at revenue per repair order. Each line is escalated at a price assumption.
- The P&L then deducts cost of sales by department, using one minus the gross margin, to show gross profit. Because new vehicles carry thin front-end margins while F&I and fixed operations earn much higher margins, total gross profit—not revenue—drives the business.
- SG&A is expressed as a percentage of gross profit, highlighting operating leverage as the department mix changes.
Free cash flow and valuation outputs
The free-cash-flow engine starts with EBIT, applies the tax rate to get NOPAT, adds back depreciation, subtracts capital expenditure and the change in working capital. Floorplan financing is treated as a working-capital item within the favourable NWC assumption, keeping the DCF unlevered.
- The resulting unlevered free cash flows are discounted at WACC and summed. A Gordon-growth terminal value is also discounted and added to give enterprise value.
- Net debt is deducted to arrive at equity value and value per share.
Assessing acquisitions, growth plans and department mix
The model is suited to evaluating an acquisition, a new franchise, or a growth plan.
- By flexing the acquisition pipeline, the used-to-new ratio, F&I penetration per unit, or fixed-ops growth, you can observe how enterprise value, the EBITDA margin and the gross-profit pyramid respond together.
- The one-page dashboard summarises stores, units retailed, gross margin, F&I per unit, SG&A as a percentage of gross, revenue, EBITDA, EBITDA margin, enterprise value and value per share.
- The public download is a values-only preview; the underlying model captures these calculations but does not automatically recalculate in that file.
Formatted to IB standards
Named theme colors repaint the whole workbook in one click, on top of an investment-banking structure with clear input, output, and cross-sheet reference styling - brand-ready, institutional-grade, and fully auditable.
Created by ex-finance professionals
Hey, I’m Alex and I created Finamodel.
Over my years in the finance industry I kept building the same models over and over again. Same structure, same assumptions, different logo. So I started building frameworks to turn them into clean, reusable templates.
Every model here is one I’d actually use for a client, and I personally vet each one before it goes up.
I’m not an expert in every industry, but I’ve built enough models to know what belongs in one. And when something is completely foreign to me, I reach out to my network for experts to work on our models with us.
Having a template library on hand cuts a first build from hours to minutes.
Need help finding your model? You’ll find me in the Finamodel app!
Frequently asked
What is a car dealership model?+
A car dealership model captures the seven-year operating economics and intrinsic value of a franchised automotive retailer. It rolls a store count forward, converts stores into new and used units retailed and service repair orders, builds revenue by department, runs a department-gross-margin P&L to EBITDA and net income, and discounts an unlevered free-cash-flow stream to enterprise value, equity value, and value per share. It is how a private-equity associate, dealer-group CFO, or lender values an auto retailer.
Why is gross profit, not revenue, the key metric?+
New-vehicle sales dominate revenue but earn razor-thin front-end margins, while F&I and fixed operations earn far higher margins on much less revenue. Total gross profit is a better measure of the business than revenue, and the model builds cost of sales department by department so the gross pyramid is explicit and SG&A can be measured as a percentage of gross.
Why is SG&A expressed as a percentage of gross?+
Dealer groups manage their cost base against gross profit rather than revenue, because revenue is inflated by low-margin new-vehicle sales. The model runs personnel, advertising, rent and occupancy, and other SG&A as a percentage of gross profit and reports the SG&A-to-gross ratio, the headline operating-leverage metric for the sector.
Where is floorplan financing in the model?+
Floorplan funds the bulk of new-vehicle inventory, so it is treated as a working-capital item and captured in the favourable NWC assumption rather than as a separate interest line, which keeps the DCF unlevered. An average new-inventory schedule from a days-supply input sits on the Throughput sheet for context, and a financing layer can be added on top for a levered view.
Can I make it a levered or single-store model?+
The template is a single-entity unlevered DCF. For an equity-IRR view, add a debt schedule including floorplan interest and bridge to levered free cash flow; for a single rooftop, set the estate to one store and size units, F&I, and fixed-ops throughput to that location. The net-debt line already bridges enterprise value to equity value, so a financing layer slots in cleanly.
Have more financial modelling questions? Contact us
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