Downtown Fresno's Haron Jaguar Land Rover lot. Photo by Frank Lopez

Haron Jaguar Land Rover in Fresno will be adding a new brand of cars to its downtown dealership.

Haron Jaguar Land Rover has acquired the Volvo Fresno auto dealership from John Harris and changed the name to Haron Volvo Cars Fresno.

Owner and General Manager Randy Haron said that he has had interest in acquiring Volvo Fresno since the early 2000s, when it was located downtown. But the owner sold it to another family, who then sold it to Lithia, then to the Harris Automotive Group, which owned it for a few years before selling to Haron.

A new building will be constructed on the right side of the Haron Jaguar Land Rover facility, and the lot will be expanded to support the new stock of Volvo cars.

The Haron Volvo Cars facility will feature a three-car show room and will cover about 3,000 square feet.

Haron said that there will be about 50 Volvo cars on the lot to kick things off.

Haron said the Volvo brand is coming out with a new line of cars and won’t just be known for its familiar station wagons and sedans, with an upcoming lineup of new SUVs and electric vehicles.

Because the Fresno area already has a lot of units in operation — an industry term for the number of a certain make of car in an area, Haron said there is already a strong clientele base, and that Volvo’s new products will attract more customers.

Haron said that mechanics and technicians from Haron Jaguar Land Rover will work at the Haron Volvo Cars facility and that he might hire more as time goes on. He said that the number of employees grew from 31 to 70 this year alone.

Recently, there have been a number of auto dealers in Fresno being sold or moving around — such as Lithia Subaru of Fresno moving to a new location on Blackstone Avenue and Fresno Mazda moving to the former Subaru location as part of a sale.

Haron said it is because dealers have to meet guidelines and standards of the car manufacturer.

Volvo cars are currently being sold at the Haron Jaguar Land Rover location and the Haron Volvo Cars Fresno facility is expected to be completed in about two years. 

“We want be successful with Volvo — keep bringing good service to people and see more people come to Downtown Fresno,” Haron said. “It’s a draw. We are almost 75 years old so we got a milestone coming soon.”