- December 4, 2025
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Downtown Sarasota is about to get fancier: a Bentley franchise is opening on State Street in January 2026.
Bentley Sarasota will be located where a high-end auto dealership called The Sarasota Studio has been operating since 2015, selling vehicles from McLarens to Rolls-Royces. The Sarasota Studio is operated by Tampa Bay car sales powerhouse Dimmitt Automotive Group, which will convert the space, at 1518 State St., to align with Bentley standards. (The Sarasota Studio, according to its website, currently sells used/pre-owned Bentleys, such as a Black 2025 Bentley Continental GT, which was on its website Sept. 19 for $380,000.)
But having a Bentley franchise — an investment that will cost Dimmitt Automotive into the millions — is another step up in luxury. The UK-based brand approached the Clearwater-based auto dealer and asked the company to open the franchise location in Sarasota, Dimmitt CEO Scott Larguier says.
“The manufacturer does studies on populations and markets” then determines where it should have representation, Larguier says, adding Bentley identified Sarasota as a place where it wanted a dealership.
Sarasota is a “marquee, high-net-worth city,” Larguier says, comparing it with Greenwich, Connecticut — and closer to home, Palm Beach and Naples. Those areas also have Bentley franchises.
In the Tampa Bay area, Dimmitt Automotive Group operates 13 dealerships, including Bentley Tampa Bay in Pinellas Park, which it has had for about 20 years.
At one point, Larguier says, half the Bentleys sold out of Bentley Tampa Bay were to buyers south of the Sunshine Skyway.
“They’re all over the place,” Dimmitt Automotive Group President Peter Dimmitt says. “They’re kind of the golf cart of Sarasota.”
Bentleys, of course, which start around $207,000 at Bentley Tampa Bay, are not everyday cars.
“These are really reward automobiles,” Larguier says. “Most people don't look at them and say, ‘I need to go buy one because my old car is wearing out.’” Instead, buyers are interested in how to make the vehicles extensions of themselves, he says, from customizing the woods to personalizing the colors.
The “fun ones” are people who “just sold their business, and they’re looking to reward themselves, and they come in to buy their first one,” Larguier says. “Or that dreamer that comes in and walks the showroom and says, ‘One day we're going to come back and I'm going to get one.’ …And they turn back up.”
Dimmitt also uses the word “fun” in describing the process of selling a Bentley.
“You can customize it, and you can personalize it,” Dimmitt says. One vehicle might appeal to a “convertible person,” while another could be into the “tuxedo” style of black and white.
“There's a lot of great people in that Sarasota market that really do enjoy expressing their personality through their automobiles, their homes, through their lifestyle,” Dimmitt says. “And so it's a lot of fun.”
Dimmitt says his mother is one of those who personalized her vehicle; she has an aquamarine Bentley convertible.
Just as the cars exude luxury, so must a Bentley franchise.
The process entails following a set of brand standards — and costs into the millions.
“Not unlike McDonald's or some other franchise, they're a franchise,” Larguier says of Bentley. “We've got to meet a certain standard that Bentley lays out in terms of their look and feel and touch and their showroom.”
While there will not be any structural modification to the building on State Street, there will be updates as far as materials and aesthetics, Larguier adds. One year, he says, Bentley may want its franchisees to feature mohair rugs, while a couple of years later it may require something else.
Processes will also be introduced to “elevate the experience” for customers, Dimmitt says, such as adding a service concierge.
To start, Bentley Sarasota will have about 12 employees and will ultimately employ about 20 between its sales and after-sales centers.
Unlike many dealerships, Bentley Sarasota will be in a retail area surrounded by storefronts, with its showroom in one location and its service center more than a mile away.
Bentley is a “couture” brand, Larguier says, adding that the downtown showroom will provide an experience similar to visiting a Louis Vuitton store.
“We could have moved out on Clark Road and built a dealership, just like everybody else does, but we love the vibe and the energy in downtown,” Larguier says.
The goal is for the conversion of the 7,000-square-foot showroom to be complete by Jan. 1, 2026. By the middle of 2026, a 15,000-square-foot service center off 17th Street will be operational as well, about 1.5 miles away.
While it is atypical to have a service center in a separate location, it is not unheard of — Larguier cites Chicago as an example of another Bentley dealership where the service center is off-site because of logistics and cost.
In Sarasota, the service center will not be customer-facing, Larguier adds. Instead, a service concierge at the dealership will take the keys and handle the vehicle and its servicing needs for the client, bringing it back to the dealership or the client’s home, as part of the “couture” experience.
While Bentley is based in the UK, which is subject to tariffs from the United States, Larguier says the manufacturer has “done a very good job of insulating customers against these price increases,” though he says it is still to be determined how the trade deals shake out.
Bentley customers are “insulated, naturally, just because of their affluence,” Larguier adds. “However, they're pragmatic. You know, many of these folks started out with nothing, and … made a lot. So very few of them are foolish in terms of how they go about managing their resources.”
Overall, Dimmitt Automotive Group is not seeing a change in consumer behavior as a result of the tariffs around luxury vehicles, according to Larguier.
“Our volume this year is every bit in step with what it was last year,” Larguier says. “We've not seen any dramatic decrease in terms of the number of luxury units we sold."
Though Dimmitt Automotive Group declines to disclose revenue and sales data, Chief Marketing & Technology Officer Andrew Riffee says “2024 was a record volume year for unit sales across the group.”
So far in 2025, Riffee says, “many of the brands in our portfolio” are showing year-over-year growth.
