BMW sales at Bert Ogden in Pharr are outpacing some bigger Texas markets, leaders say

Natasha Del Barrio, the CEO of Bert Ogden and Fiesta Auto Group, a locally owned dealership network and major employer in the Rio Grande Valley, remembers when the company had just one tractor trailer to deliver vehicles to customers across Texas. 

“We once had one delivery truck driver and that was good enough for the longest time, and now we’ve had to expand that to a fleet of three [trailers] to be able to keep up with all the out of town deliveries,” Del Barrio said. 

These days, that includes a VIP delivery driver who regularly treks across Texas. 

“We’ll go the extra mile or in some cities the extra 600 miles,” Del Barrio said about the luxury vehicle business, which includes BMW. 

In July 2025, Bert Ogden opened BMW of Pharr along Interstate 69 near Owassa Road where executives and clients gathered to celebrate recently sales success about a year later. 

“This building is so much fun, it was a long [process] in the making for these guys and we had options [for the location and design]. I wanted something really unique that honored our customers, the [BMW] brand and the city of Pharr. This building is designed with a Manhattan boutique hotel styling in mind,” Del Barrio said. 

That means the two-story tall building, showroom and service center with carwash features diamond necklaces, earrings and bracelets from McAllen-based Portillo Jewelers for sale and in a building with the natural light of an art gallery. 

“The Rio Grande Valley has become a very important market for BMW,” said Randy Watson, southern region vice president for BMW North America during the event. 

The new construction of the BMW of Pharr is worth at least $12 million for the 35,000 square foot brick and mortar, according to publicly available Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation records, but executives say the investment was more declining to specify how much more as a privately held company. 

“It was a large investment but it was an investment for our customers,” Del Barrio said, noting that the easy access to Interstate 69 enables customers to drop in quickly. “The internet was a game changer for the automotive business, being able to sell cars online has really opened things up for us. So most of our business is in the Rio Grande Valley and then the state of Texas but these guys deliver cars all over the country on a regular basis. I think it’s a testament to the hard work and dedication of the team here that the Southern region vice president [of BMW] came down to be a part of this with us.” 

The luxury vehicle market is a mix of leases, sales and financed vehicles from sports cars to sedans and even SUVs. 

“We have doubled our business in the last year and these guys are consistency hitting the mark and I would expect that we are going to far surpass Houston and San Antonio by the end of next year for sales,” Del Barrio said. “For sales, we have already beat Austin, we have beat San Antonio a few times and now we’re looking at Houston. It’s all about the people [employees] our team is really the best.” 

For example, there’s the Cardenas BMW dealership in Harlingen, Principle BMW of Corpus Christi and of San Antonio, and there’s two BMW dealerships in Austin and several in Houston and Dallas. 

“BMW is the first store I got the opportunity to run and today we passed it off to an even bigger and better general manager Patrick Fralick,” Del Barrio said. “This store has been everything that we dreamed it would be. I think Patrick [must have thought] we were stringing him along for the past decade or so, it took a while to get here. But we’re finally here and these guys have surpassed every expectation, met every goal and this has just proven to be an excellent home for us.” 

Fralick was tapped for the role of general manager when he was in his mid-20s and trained by the business to grow in to the role, she said. 

Exact data regarding vehicle sales for each brand is considered a trade secret. 

“Business has been great, especially in these luxury stores in the Rio Grande Valley,” Del Barrio said. “It’s a really strong market, leasing isn’t a huge thing in the state of Texas, communities are a little adverse to it but we do more leasing in the luxury stores than we do in the domestic or import stores and you’ll also find in the luxury stores that’s where you’re more likely to have customers that’ll purchase vehicles outright. But still, 80% or more of all our sales are financed.”

Texas has led new vehicle dealership registrations growing by 10.7% between 2024 and 2025, second only to California with 11.8% growth, followed by 9.4% growth in Florida, according to S&P Global Mobility data compiled by the National Automobile Dealers Association. 

Texas car dealerships are big business in the state, employing about 109,000 workers compared to 110,800 in California and 90,300 in Florida with an average of 85 employees per dealership in Texas who earn about $1700 — typically higher than the national average of $1600 a week. 

General Motors still has the largest market share when ranked by manufacturer in the U.S. for light-vehicles in 2025 according to Wards Auto complied by the National Automotive Dealers Association with 17.% nationwide followed by Toyota with 1.5%. Luxury vehicles are a smaller share of the market, with 2.5% for BMW and 2.1% for Mercedes Benz. Electric vehicle maker Tesla Motors accounts for roughly 3.5% of the market. 

The Bert Ogden Auto Group has sold BMWs through its dealership since 1990 with its first lot on the corner of Jackson and Hackberry in McAllen as an expansion of its Nissan McAllen store. 

The second BMW location on North 10th Street near Fern Avenue “flourished” according to the company, which is why in 2017, the business sought real estate closer to a major roadway. 

This year, the former BMW lot in McAllen near Fern Avenue is undergoing a new transformation yet again. Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation construction records show that Bert Ogden has plans for what appears to be a two-phase corporate office at the site. 

“The old BMW dealership that was in McAllen is going to become the corporate headquarters and that’s gonna be a pretty significant investment too but I’m really excited about that because it’s going to look like nothing the Valley has ever seen,” Del Barrio said. “It’s going to be fun and interesting, a great place for our corporate team to do the work that they do and get out and support the dealerships.” 

Over the past decade, there has been an uptick in the number of vehicles registered in Hidalgo and Cameron counties in the Rio Grande Valley, according to Texas registration data for fiscal year 2015 through 2025. 

As of 2025, there are more than 1.2 million registered vehicles across the Rio Grande Valley a 26% increase over the past decade and 6.6% increase between 2024 and 2025. 

In 2015, there were 583,042 registered vehicles in Hidalgo County; 302,518 in Cameron County, 54,230 in Starr County and 15,506 in Willacy County. In 2024, there were 708,363 registered vehicles in Hidalgo County, 352,404 in Cameron County, 58,897 in Starr County and 15,809 in Willacy County. In 2025, there were 758,111 registered vehicles in Hidalgo County, 373,685 in Cameron County, 62,216 in Starr County and 16,934 in Willacy County. 

Between 2015 and 2025, the number of registered vehicles grew by 30% in Hidalgo County, 23% in Cameron County, 14% in Starr County and 9.2% in Willacy County. 

Then between 2024 and 2025, the number of registered vehicles increased by 7% in Hidalgo County, 6% in Cameron County, 5.6% in Starr County and 7.1% in Willacy County. 

Graphic renderings of the new Bert Ogden headquarters were not immediately available but the North lot of the campus is expected to be completed by December 2027 and cost at least $20 million for three new buildings spanning 50,500 square feet. The corporate campus South lot is expected to cost $15 million where an existing office would be demolished and a two-story tall 14,000 square foot office building is in the works. 

The Bert Ogden enterprise is owned by Robert Vackar and Janet Ogden Vackar, which employs about 1,300 workers representing more than two dozen brands from BMW to Ford. Robert Vackar is the chairman of the board and dealer principal while his spouse Janet is the chairwoman of the board and president of marketing. 

The Vackars are notable philathropists in the Valley who donated $20 million to the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley Athletics program in 2024 with the stadium where the Vaquero football team plays named in their honor in addition to the $15 million donation to the Robert C. Vackar College of Business and Entrepreneurship in Edinburg back in 2016 among other donations to the university over the years.