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Chad Collier CarSaver’s co-founder and CEO is bringing online auto sales to the mainstream BY MEGAN SELING
C
arSaver CEO Chad Collier laughs when asked about his first car. “My first car was a Nissan 200 SX,” he says. “I loved that car, but it was definitely a ‘first car.’ And that thing was fast! I got in an accident like teenagers usually do. I got hit on the side of the front end so my front end was pointed to the left. When I was going straight it looked like my car was turning. It took me a while before I could get enough money saved up to get that front end straightened up.” Collier also remembers his first car-buying experience — it was a different kind of wreck. He was working as a car salesman to pay his way through college at the time, but even insider knowledge couldn’t make the infamously long, tedious process any easier. “I negotiated with the dealership for several hours,” he says. “I spent most of the day on a Saturday. I really needed to be at work but I was at another dealership buying a car. Ultimately, I got turned down for the financing, so I wasted all day to find out I couldn’t buy it. I was young and didn’t have a lot of credit. That experience really bothered me.” Collier continued to work for and eventually own several car lots throughout the South, including a Ford dealership in Tennessee. Automotive News declared him one of the Innovative Dealers in 2008 after he began providing customers with iPods so that they could take no-pressure video tours of cars on the lot. Embracing technology even further, he and Sean Wolfington founded CarSaver in 2012. The company is currently the only car-buying platform to sell new, used and certified pre-owned vehicles with an end-toend online experience.
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SUMMER 2021 | NASHVILLEPOST.COM
ERIC ENGLAND
