PORTLAND, Ore. (PORTLAND TRIBUNE) — Bob Lanphere Sr., founder of one of the region’s largest family-owned automotive dealerships, passed away Friday. He was 81.
Lanphere’s first dealership, a motorcycle store that started by selling Hondas, celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. Today, Lanphere Enterprises is a 600-employee company with car and motorcycle dealerships in Beaverton, Tigard, Newberg, Wilsonville and Renton, Wash. His son, Bob Lanphere Jr., is president. His daughter, Sharon Lenz, is secretary. Their children and other relatives also work there.
“If you can do what you love and do it with your family, then you are very lucky,” says Bob Lanphere Sr. told the Portland Tribune for a profile last August.
An avid motorcycle racer when he was young, Lanphere grew up near 82nd Avenue. He opened his Honda motorcycle shop at Southwest Broadway Street and Hall Boulevard in Beaverton in 1964. Because he was already selling Honda motorcycles, Lanphere was in a position to acquire a franchise to sell Honda cars when the Japanese company began making them.
Although the first model, the diminutive Honda 600, did not sell well, its successor, the groundbreaking Honda Civic, arrived a few years before the 1973 Gas Crisis. When it hit, many American motorists suddenly embraced fuel-efficient cars and traded their gas guzzlers in on Civics and Honda’s next big hits, the larger Accord and the sporty Prelude.
The growing sales allowed Bob to acquire other franchises and open new dealerships in the coming years. Remarkably, Lanphere Enterprises still owns the building that housed the original Honda motorcycle dealership. It is just south of their Kia dealership at 12520 S.W. Canyon Road and it is still full of motorcycles — although they are now being refurbished and stored as part of Lanphere’s large collection of around 400 bikes.
Many other motorcycles are also on display at the current location of the motorcycle store, Beaverton Motorcycles, 10380 S.W. Cascade Ave in Tigard. The walls are adorned with pictures of Lanphere during his early days of motorcycle racing — well before he even thought of starting the dealership that has eventually made him such a well known name.