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Every Chevrolet dealer claims to be different. Rick Hendrick City Chevrolet is one of the few that actually has the history to back it up.
Rick Hendrick City Chevrolet has served Charlotte, North Carolina since 1977, the year Rick Hendrick bought the store and turned it into the No. 1 volume Chevrolet dealership in the Carolinas within twelve months. It remains Hendrick Automotive Group's flagship location today, the store the rest of the company measures itself against.
Almost fifty years later, City Chevrolet is still doing business a few miles east of uptown, on Independence Boulevard. The company that name was built on now spans 134 franchises across 13 states. This is where our story started.
Rick Hendrick was 26 years old and one year into owning his first dealership, a struggling Chevrolet store in Bennettsville, South Carolina, when he set his sights on Charlotte. In 1977, he purchased City Chevrolet, and the move changed everything. In its first year under Hendrick, City Chevrolet became the No. 1 volume Chevrolet dealership in the Carolinas, proof that the approach he'd used to turn around Bennettsville wasn't a fluke.
That early success is the reason City Chevrolet carries flagship status inside Hendrick Automotive Group today. It's also why the store doubles as a training ground for the rest of the company. More than 20 Hendrick general managers have come up through City Chevrolet, learning the business on this lot before running stores of their own. When you walk in, you're standing in the building where much of Hendrick's current leadership got their start.
Rick Hendrick grew up on a farm near Palmer Springs, Virginia, working on cars alongside his father, known to everyone as "Papa Joe." By 14, he'd helped rebuild a 1931 Chevrolet with his dad. By his teens, he was racing cars and crewing at local tracks on weekends.
After high school, Hendrick enrolled in a co-op program with North Carolina State University and Westinghouse Electric in Raleigh, training to become a tool and die maker. Cars pulled harder. While in Raleigh, he opened a small used car lot with an established dealer named Mike Leith. The lot did well enough that Leith made him general sales manager of his new car import operation. Hendrick was 23.
Three years later, he and his wife Linda sold off what they owned to buy a struggling Chevrolet franchise in Bennettsville, South Carolina. At 26, he became the youngest Chevrolet dealer in the country. A year after that, he bought City Chevrolet. The same hands-on, people-first approach that turned around a small-town dealership is still how City Chevrolet does business today, just at a much bigger scale.
Charlotte sits at the center of American stock car racing, and City Chevrolet has its own footnote in that world. In the 1990 film Days of Thunder, Tom Cruise's character, Cole Trickle, drove the No. 46 City Chevrolet car, a direct nod to Rick Hendrick's real dealership.
Hendrick Motorsports built and maintained the race cars used throughout production, so the connection ran well past the paint scheme. That original No. 46 City Chevrolet car is on permanent display at the Hendrick Motorsports Museum today, a small piece of Hollywood history sitting a few miles from where it was born.
2026 marks 50 years since Rick Hendrick founded Hendrick Automotive Group, and City Chevrolet was there for nearly all of it. What started as one dealership in Bennettsville, then a second in Charlotte, has grown into the largest privately held automotive retail organization in the country.
Today, Hendrick Automotive Group operates 134 franchises across 26 manufacturer nameplates, spanning from the Carolinas to California. The company employs more than 11,000 people across 97 dealership locations, 21 collision centers, and four accessories distributors in 13 states. City Chevrolet customers get the benefit of that scale, access to inventory, financing options, and support that a single-location store simply can't match, without losing the local feel of a dealership that's been part of this community since before most of Charlotte's current suburbs existed.
Being Hendrick's flagship store means City Chevrolet is built to handle the full life of vehicle ownership, not just the sale:
From the Silverado and Equinox to the Trax and Traverse, with access to additional models across the Hendrick network.
Including GM Certified and Hendrick Certified options backed by manufacturer warranties.
For maintenance and repairs, with online scheduling so you're not waiting on hold.
Stocking OEM Chevrolet components for owners and do-it-yourselfers alike.
Including manufacturer offers for well-qualified buyers and payment deferral options through GM Financial.
Built for Charlotte-area contractors and businesses that need a commercial vehicle configured right the first time.
So you know roughly what your current vehicle is worth before you ever step on the lot.
Flagship status only means something if the customers agree, and City Chevrolet's numbers back it up. The dealership carries a 4.7-star rating across more than 7,000 customer reviews, alongside over 1,100 reviews on DealerRater. City Chevrolet is also a BBB Accredited Business with an A+ rating.
Those numbers come from decades of the same basic promise: treat people fairly, take care of customers long after the sale, and build relationships that last. That's not new marketing language. It's the same approach Rick Hendrick used to turn around a failing dealership in 1976, carried forward by a team that's been serving Charlotte for over 50 years.
Here are the questions we hear most from customers curious about our history and how we operate today.
City Chevrolet has served Charlotte since 1977, when Rick Hendrick bought the store and built it into the No. 1 volume Chevrolet dealership in the Carolinas within a single year. Nearly fifty years later, the same Independence Boulevard location is still selling and servicing Chevrolets for Charlotte drivers today.
Yes. City Chevrolet holds flagship status inside Hendrick Automotive Group, the company Rick Hendrick built starting with this store. It's also a training ground for company leadership: more than 20 Hendrick general managers learned the business here before running their own Hendrick dealerships across the country.
Yes. City Chevrolet is a BBB Accredited Business with an A+ rating, a status that reflects the dealership's ongoing commitment to fair, transparent business practices with every customer who walks through the door. You can view the full accreditation details directly on the Better Business Bureau's website.
Yes. City Chevrolet runs a dedicated Work Truck Solutions program for Charlotte-area contractors and businesses that need a commercial Chevrolet configured correctly the first time, backed by fleet support for buyers managing more than one vehicle. It's part of serving every kind of Chevrolet owner, not just individual drivers.
City Chevrolet is located at 5101 E. Independence Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28212, a few miles east of uptown Charlotte. The dealership serves drivers throughout the greater Charlotte metro, including Matthews, Gastonia, Pineville, and Concord, with new and used sales, service, and genuine parts all under one roof.
Yes. City Chevrolet's finance team works with a range of lenders to find payment options that fit your budget, including manufacturer programs for well-qualified buyers. Online trade-in valuation tools also let you estimate what your current vehicle is worth before you ever visit, whether or not you buy your next Chevrolet here.
The fastest way to reach us is through our contact page, where your message routes directly to the department you need, whether that's sales, service, parts, or finance. You can also visit the Independence Boulevard location in person, since sales are open seven days a week during posted hours for walk-ins.
Rick Hendrick City Chevrolet is located at 5101 E. Independence Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28212, serving drivers across Matthews, Gastonia, Pineville, and Concord. Whether you're shopping for a new or used Chevrolet, need service, or just want to see where Hendrick Automotive Group got its start, our team is ready to help.