A virtual world of car lovers

Stuart Carpenter, owner of Copley Motorcars, hasn't shaken hands with two-thirds of his clients. He hasn't even met them.

Most of his customers shop by phone or by computer mouse. Over the past decade, Carpenter has built a clientele that spans the continent. He ships the vehicles directly to his clients' doors in places as far away as California and British Columbia. Most of the cars he sells are used, but they're not the kind that you test by kicking the tires.

The Needham dealer buys and trades only rare or limited edition luxury cars, such as the 1997 Land Rover Defender 90 Wagon in portofino red -- selling for $43,800 -- or the fire engine red 1992 Ferrari 512 TR for $114,800. Some are antique; for instance, the 1948 MG TC for $34,800. Some are just plain goofy: his 1963 Austin Mini Moke in marine blue listed for $14,800.

Carpenter says his customers include well-known athletes, music industry professionals, and the head honchos in some of Boston's top companies (although he declines to divulge any names).

As an independent dealer, Carpenter doesn't have the constant stream of cars to sell from a major automaker. This alleviates stressful sales quotas, but it also means he has to buy a car for every one he sells. Carpenter, who has a showroom on Chestnut Street, estimated that he sells between 15 and 20 vehicles per month.

Land Rovers and Range Rovers are his specialty -- ''They have a funky look, and everyone thinks you're a character when you drive them."

Over the past decade, Carpenter has developed a knack for scouring the country to find unusual cars. A recent favorite is the Vesuvius orange 2006 Range Rover Sport S/C SE, of which only 200 will be sold this year in the United States, he said. In the first 90 days after they were released, Carpenter bought 13 of them.

Pricing the vehicles is a complex algorithm of many factors: mileage, age, condition, rareness.

For example, Carpenter is offering a 1998 993 Porsche C4S for $60,000, while a 2001 Porsche 996 C4 coupe is priced at $46,000. The older car has only 14,000 miles on it and was manufactured in the last year of its model designation. It also was built in the last year that Porsche used air-cooled engines, Carpenter said.

''It's not because the 2001 model is less special. There are just more of them," Carpenter said.

Inside the airy showroom, just beyond the 1966 Ford Shelby Mustang GT350 in Acapulco blue and the white Porsche and the red Ferrari, Carpenter is doing what he does for most of the day: chatting up old clients and courting new ones over the phone.

Piles of file folders, stacks of client business cards, his black flat-screen monitor and pens in neat vertical rows claim nearly all of the real estate on his massive mahogany desk. His Instant Messenger pings in the background.

Two teenagers walk in on their way to McDonald's.

''My friend told me there's a Rolls-Royce in here," said Aaron Niles, 14. The rumors were incorrect, but the boys still enjoyed inspecting the Ferrari parked near Carpenter's desk.

Part of the appeal of Copley Motorcars is that Carpenter's customers -- predominantly men -- can buy the car of their dreams, and then sell it back to the dealer when they crave something new.

Westborough resident Mark Neil has bought at least 30 cars from Copley Motorcars in the past decade, averaging three cars per year, selling many of them back to Carpenter. At one point, Neil owned eight cars. His buys are usually quick, often impulsive, he said. Sometimes he'll sell Carpenter one car and get two in return.

''It drives my insurance company crazy because there's always stuff coming off and on my policy," said Neil, an associate general counsel for IBM.

Neil gets revved by the craftsmanship, not just the attention he gets on the Mass Pike. He has turned heads with his two favorite buys: a Hummer H1 and a 1995 Land Rover 110 turbo diesel, which had been specially imported into the United States, he said.

Carpenter ''called me as soon as he got it," Neil said of the 110.

The spirit of buying and selling has reached beyond Carpenter's dealership into Neil's office, where he and several colleagues have formed small trading circles of their own. Neil once swapped a Porsche 911, which he had purchased from Copley, for a Mercedes owned by an IBM sales executive. He later sold the Mercedes to Copley.

Neil's relationship with his car dealer has grown into a friendship, so much so that Neil's wife even invited Carpenter and his wife, Caren, to his surprise 40th birthday party.

''I walked in and there was Stuart and Caren along with my family and friends," Neil said.

Carpenter gave him a blown-up photograph of his favorite Land Rover, which still is hanging on the wall over his piano.

Carpenter has wondered why people would plunk down $100,000 for a car they've never taken for a test drive or even sat in to smell the leather interior. But as a businessman, he can relate.

''I buy almost everything sight unseen as well," he said. ''I bought two Land Rovers from someone in San Antonio. The fellow e-mailed me pictures of the cars, sent the titles and the money. I sent the truck [to pick them up]. The cars arrived. They were beautiful."

Carpenter, 47, said he's been fortunate over the years not to encounter many scoundrels. He said on two occasions he lost money on bad deals. Though he didn't wish to elaborate, Carpenter called them ''learning experiences," and said he has become adept at sensing whether a vehicle is a lemon or a jewel just by examining the e-mailed photos and scrutinizing the car's title and its history.

''You talk 5 to 10 minutes online, and you have a good feeling. I expect to service the cars" before being able to sell them, he said.

Over the years, Carpenter has built up a trusty network of buyers and sellers, many of whom are car dealers themselves. ''They know what I like," he said.

The dealership's entire staff is Carpenter and his associate Keith Humphrey, 24.

Caren Carpenter, 45, often pops into the showroom after getting off work at a Newton preschool. She helps with the bookkeeping and runs errands. ''Really and truly we want him on the phone," she said of her husband.

With just Carpenter and Humphrey mainly running the show, they work up to 12 hours a day, six days a week.

''I couldn't do the business I do without the Internet," Carpenter said. He used to go to Out of Town News in Cambridge every Sunday and scour the classifieds in The New York Times, the Houston Chronicle, and the Los Angeles Times. Now he scans the newspaper car listings online.

Carpenter grew up in Amherst and ventured away from home in his late teens to Hartford, where he worked as a caddy and met Caren. He never went to college, doubting that he would have had the patience to apply himself.

Though his childhood love was Mustang convertibles, his first car was an unremarkable $600 Ford Gran Torino, a model later made famous by ''Starsky and Hutch." Still, Carpenter said his passion for cars has its limits.

''My other dealer friends are so passionate about them. They said I looked at cars like chunks of iron," Carpenter said.

After spending most of his 20s at a Hartford country club -- working his way up from caddy to golf pro -- Carpenter decided to move on to a more lucrative career. He was inspired by a few friends who were car dealers to enter the field. He got a job in Boston selling new BMWs and Jaguars at a traditional dealership.

''I figured if I'm going to be in the car business, I might as well sell nice cars," he said.

Weary of the confrontational relationship between sellers and buyers, Carpenter opened a showroom in Copley Square in 1995 on the premise that he'd sell hard-to-find cars that people have to have.

''I want to be where other people aren't," he said. ''Boston is a big BMW town. I don't sell them. Why? Because there's a jillion of them."

People often ask Carpenter why he bothers having a showroom if most of his customers live outside Massachusetts.

''I have to like the place I work," he said. ''I could do it in a dingy warehouse in the middle of an office park, but I don't want to. Who wants to go to work in a lousy warehouse?"

He moved into the Chestnut Street location -- formerly the Salamone Toyota dealership -- in October because it offers more space for showing cars and the luxury of working 1 1/2 miles from his home.

Caren Carpenter describes her husband as ''methodical." Every day he has the same breakfast: two English muffins and yogurt, having been awakened at 5 a.m. by their beagles, Rosie and Buddy. He's out the door and in the office by 7 a.m. When he cooks, she said, he lines up all the ingredients -- already measured out -- in front of him before beginning.

''He's a one-task guy. He can only concentrate on one thing at a time," she said.

She said they are alike in many ways after 18 years of marriage, though their taste in cars differs. Stuart is a Land Rover guy. She prefers her Volvo Cross Country.

''In the summer I tooted around in a Mercedes convertible. That's what's fun about being married to a car guy," she said.

Though it's just the two of them, Stuart carts around his beagles in a Land Rover. In summers, he prefers vintage convertibles.

Caren is irked by the stereotype that used car salesmen are pushy or dishonest. ''The statement is an unfair categorization," she said. ''Every industry has bad apples."

Stuart takes the reputation with a grain of salt. Aggressiveness is the nature of the game -- and that's how he scores the rarest of gems. But he describes his customer interactions as ''low-key and nonconfrontational." He said he follows their lead if they want to make a quick deal or travel at a slower pace, and recalled exchanging 40 e-mails with one customer before a sale.

The phone rings in Copley Motorcars. A customer is inquiring about a bronze 1960 Land Rover.

''It's a wonderful little car. It's got a great history. Give me a little bit and I'll send you some pictures," Carpenter told him.

''This man and I talked a year ago," he later said. ''We talked and didn't do anything. He calls a year later. He probably remembers that I was a nice guy. It's good for business to be nice to people."