By Carolyn Greer Photos By Jim Haynes and Kathryn Harrington
Jim Haynes, Principal and President of Blue Grass Motorsport, didn’t intend to go into the car business when he was starting out. And he didn’t intend to spend most of his life in the bluegrass state.
Haynes was born and grew up in El Paso, Texas. He attended the University of Texas at Austin and got a degree in accounting before pursuing a career in that field.
While in college, he met his future wife, Sara Vine. Sara’s father, Herb Vine, owned Blue Grass Lincoln Mercury in Louisville. Sara wanted to return to her hometown, and Haynes, who had been working with regulated industries and the oil and gas fields for Arthur Anderson & Co., had been thinking that he should be moving up at the company.
“I was 24, and I thought I deserved this big promotion,” Haynes said. “I’m 24 years old and four years, probably, in retrospect, I didn’t need to be a four-year manager, even though I was working a lot. And so I went into the car business.”
Blue Grass Motorsport today has Porsche, Audi, Land Rover, Jaguar, Maserati and Alfa Romeo dealerships at a gleaming campus on Bowling Boulevard, and Haynes owns the business with his brothers-in-law, Andy and Mike Vine. But there were lots of steps on the way from Blue Grass Lincoln Mercury to becoming the purveyor of high-end European vehicles that the company is today.
Herb Vine started Blue Grass Mercury in 1966 and added Lincoln in 1973. The dealership was located at 4301 Shelbyville Road, the site of a Planet Fitness today.
Haynes said that when he joined the company, “I knew it gave my father-in-law a nice living. But he had two other sons who were coming to the business. And I knew everybody was going to want to live as nice as their father. So I knew I was going to have to expand the business.”
“Taking what he called a conservative approach, we just added franchises as they came available. And we tried a lot of different franchises.”
“We were Saab dealers, Alfa Romeo dealers, Isuzu dealers, Hyundai. And then in 1991, we bought the Audi dealership from Don Corlett, and then the following year in November of ‘92, we bought Don Corlett’s Porsche and Mazda business.”
That transaction occurred not long before Corlett’s death, Haynes said. “I remember when we bought the Audi from him, he said, ‘If I was young, I would get on this bandwagon. I think Audi’s going to go places’ Because in 1991, Audi was really nothing at that time. So his words were prophetic.”
At the same time, he and his brothers bought out Herb Vine and took over the business.
The company’s growth continued.
“In 2000, we were given the Land Rover franchise, and we built a little Land Rover center on Shelbyville Road. Part of it was on property Don Corlett had, the other part was a closed Chevron gas station. Today, that building has been converted into a Mazda dealership, which we sold. Then later, we bought out Tom Payette when he wanted to sell his Jaguar franchise.”
With the purchase of the Jaguar dealership, Blue Grass bought its property on Frankfort and Bauer avenues. That acquisition from Tom Payette resulted into a real estate development venture for the partners.
The owner of Land Rover and Jaguar wanted Blue Grass to combine them in one location, so Haynes began looking for companies that might be interested in the Payette site.
He went to a retail real estate conference and learned that Walgreens was interested in the site, but first, he had to work with Masonic Home to have a traffic light installed. Starbucks was thinking of putting a store at the corner of Lexington Road and Bauer, but the company opted for Frankfort Avenue instead. The partners also made a deal for a National City Bank office on the site.
Meanwhile, they had just opened the campus on Bowling Boulevard.
“And so we were just getting thin on capital. And that’s when we sold the Lincoln Mercury, Isuzu Hyundai and Mazda to Tracy Farmer and the real estate associated with it.”
In addition to the Bowling Boulevard site, Blue Grass has “a little satellite on Shelbyville Road, next to the American Legion. We have a photo booth there. And we do repairs to electrical vehicles there.”
The company also is “looking at building a new building for Porsche and opening a body shop, a collision repair center. It’ll be a different location,” he said, although he declined to say where.
Haynes was clear on what’s behind the growth and staying power of Blue Grass Motorsport.
“I have two wonderful partners,” he said. “And between the three of us, we’ve worked well together. And the success here is as much credit to them as it is to me.”
Knowing the story of Blue Grass Motorsport, then, it’s probably not surprising that Haynes said his “real passion is cars. And business. I enjoy the engagement in business.”
His day-to-day car is a Porsche 911 Cabriolet. And his dream car? “My next Porsche, I guess.”
Jim and Sara Vine live in Glenview and have two sons. Their youngest son, Jeffrey, is mentally disabled and lives at Cedar Lake Lodge in LaGrange. Their oldest son, Travis, is an associate Haynes has served on the Louisville Ballet board for years, though “it’s been way too long” to recall just when he started there.
“It’s turned around and ever since we got Leslie Smart (as executive director),” he said. “The ballet was in a tenuous situation, but it’s gaining firm footing, and I expect it to get stronger under Leslie’s solid leadership.”
Haynes also was on the Kentucky Opera board, and now he’s president of the Kilgore Counseling Center board, which is a mission of Second Presbyterian Church, where he’s a member. He also is on the boards of River Fields and the Filson Society.
