Cover Art: The Brogan Cadillac livery team (L to R): Delivery Manager & Vehicle Specialist Andy Reyes, Livery & Fleet Manager Bill Fellbaum, Dealer Operator TJ Ely, and Livery & Fleet Finance Manager Evelyn Batista at the dealership in Totowa, N.J. Photography by Chris Weiss.
BY SUSAN ROSE
There are few vehicle brands so closely intertwined with the legacy of the chauffeured transportation industry as Cadillac. Long before “luxury SUV” became a category of its own, Cadillac was already synonymous with getting people from point A to point B in style. From the Fleetwood to the DeVille to the factory-stretched Formal to the modern and iconic Escalade, Cadillac has been a constant in fleets for generations.
At Brogan Cadillac, based in Totowa, N.J., that relationship has become something considerably more deliberate. More than a decade ago, the dealership established a dedicated livery department that has grown into one of Cadillac’s largest in the country. Today, Brogan sells hundreds of those premium nameplates to livery customers every year, ships vehicles across the country (thanks in part to the coordination of Delivery Manager & Vehicle Specialist Andy Reyes), and has bolstered its service department to accommodate the demands of a quick turnaround time that the industry requires.
Brogan Cadillac will celebrate its centennial in February 2027, but the story of its livery operation is much more recent. It really begins with Brogan’s Fleet Manager Bill Fellbaum, a longtime fixture in fleet sales who has spent more than four decades watching the chauffeured transportation industry cycle through trends and metal. If you’ve been to industry events, you’ve likely met him at the Cadillac booth, even if you haven’t worked with Brogan directly.
L to R: Service Manager Chris Vender, Parts Manager Chris Stephan, Evelyn Batista, TJ Ely, Bill Fellbaum, Andy Reyes, and Retail Sales Manager Gary Tursi Fellbaum had already spent about 20 years working for various Cadillac dealerships in the Northeast, crossing paths with Brogan through dealer swaps. A conversation with the dealership’s general manager eventually put him in front of TJ Ely.
“I was lucky enough to be in contact because I used to do the dealer swaps for my former dealership,” Fellbaum says. “Then I met the general manager here and he brought me over and introduced me to TJ.”
Ely knew the dealership business, and he definitely knew Cadillac. What he didn’t know particularly well was livery.
“My great grandfather started Brogan Cadillac in 1927 in Paterson, N.J.,” Ely says, noting that the dealership occupies roughly 70,000 square feet on seven acres. His grandfather Joe eventually took over, followed by his father Tom, who ran the dealership for roughly four decades. Ely has been with the dealership for more than 20 years and became dealer operator in 2018.
“When I met Bill, I didn’t know that much at all about the livery business,” Ely adds. “I didn’t know how the deals were structured and the financing and rebates from the factory. Bill is a real professional when it comes to that. He knew how everything worked. He just needed a good place to run his business.”
Brogan Cadillac in Totowa, N.J., expanded its service team to accommodate fleet customers A decade later, the results speak for themselves. Fellbaum says Brogan has ranked consistently as a top dealer in Cadillac livery sales for the past eight years. The dealership itself has been named a Cadillac Dealer of the Year for 16 consecutive years, placing it in the top 20 Cadillac stores among the roughly 950 across the country.
“These guys have just given me free rein to grow,” Fellbaum says. “This is home.” Fellbaum recruited Evelyn Batista, whom he had worked with throughout his career, and after some cajoling, she became Brogan’s manager of finance for limousine and fleet. Together with Reyes, Fellbaum says they are a powerhouse team and like a family.
“We don’t really sell cars—we help our customers build their business and manage their fleet,” says Batista, who has worked with Fellbaum since 2014 and joined Brogan in 2020. “We’ve developed a process that works seamlessly for everyone involved. From ordering the vehicles we sell and monitoring incentives as well as driver’s qualifications, my goal is to ensure we follow GM protocols, to give Brogan and our customers the confidence and peace of mind that everything is being handled properly from beginning to end.”
Fellbaum credits Batista’s strong relationship with their banking partners as a key factor in the company’s ability to secure financing solutions and get complex deals done. Fellbaum says that business has tripled since she joined the team because it has given him more time to follow up with customers and take care of their needs. He also credits Reyes for his thoroughness when delivering vehicles to clients, often spending time familiarizing them with the specific features and functions while leaving them with his cell number should they have additional questions.
A century of prestige: Brogan was already an established dealership prior to World War II When Ely saw the volume Fellbaum and his team were bringing in, he realized that it was substantial. Brogan reorganized its service operation, with three of its six service writers now dedicated to livery customers, boosting the team to more than 25. Service Manager Anthony Cunha gives livery customers his personal cell number so they can reach him directly outside of business hours. They know that downtime is particularly sensitive to an operator.
Brogan’s parts department also keeps an eye toward the needs of commercial customers, trying to stock commonly replaced items such as headlights, front and rear fascias, and other frequently needed body components. Fellbaum has longtime relationships with GM’s fleet operation that he says can help move larger repairs along quickly, even something as significant as an engine replacement.
The strategy also explains why Brogan’s relationship with a customer doesn’t necessarily end when the vehicle leaves the showroom. In fact, the next sale is already part of the first one. In Fellbaum’s experience, operators are still generally replacing their vehicles around the three-year mark, before the 150,000-mile livery warranty expires. It gives operators a predictable replacement cycle and allows them to avoid taking on repair costs after the factory coverage ends.
“We don’t want to sell you one car. We want to sell you cars over a lifetime,” Fellbaum says, adding that repeat customers are a large portion of his fleet business.
L to R: Delivery Manager & Vehicle Specialist Andy Reyes, Livery & Fleet Manager Bill Fellbaum, Dealer Operator TJ Ely, and Livery & Fleet Finance Manager Evelyn Batista at the dealership in Totowa, N.J. The dealership has also been a distributor for Kellerman Specialty Vehicles’ Everest stretch, which is based on the Escalade. For Fellbaum, the partnership is a throwback to his early career, when stretches made up a much larger portion of the business. His connection to Kellerman came through Mark Leddy—once Cadillac’s Professional Vehicle Program manager before retiring—whom he credits as a mentor and the person who originally got him into the business.
And while the Escalade is clearly the long-time star of the Cadillac livery show, Brogan’s business is not limited to one model. The dealership has sold CT5 sedans, LYRIQs, XT5 SUVs, and the electric Escalade IQ and IQL to operators. Fellbaum says interest in the IQL in particular is growing, and the dealership recently shipped several of the luxury electric behemoths to Florida.
While EV adoption is still tepid within the industry, Fellbaum does see potential for the right operators to swap a portion of their fleets with EVs.
“If you have maybe a third of your fleet in electric, you can dispatch them appropriately,” he says, taking into consideration the charging time required. “It doesn’t work for the one-to-five guys, but for those with a fleet of 50 and up, I think they’re finding it very successful.”
Even interest in the traditional Escalade has evolved. Surprisingly, Fellbaum is seeing operators move into higher-end configurations, including the upgraded Platinum trim and the optional Onyx package, in addition to the Executive package popular in our industry. Fellbaum says for operators competing in a crowded luxury transportation market, there can be value in having a vehicle that stands out in a sea of black-on-black Escalades.
“I got picked up at the airport in one with red seats, and it was so gorgeous,” Fellbaum says of a highly optioned Escalade. “You’ll never forget it.”
But whatever model an operator is looking to buy, Fellbaum’s argument ultimately comes back to the same thing: specialization. He says he sells Cadillac from one place, with the factory relationships, financing knowledge, service operation, and industry experience concentrated under one roof.
Ely sees the same thing from the dealership side. His family has spent nearly 100 years selling Cadillac, and Fellbaum has spent nearly half a century working with the people who put those Cadillacs to work daily, sometimes while the world is still asleep.
“We are Cadillac 100 percent,” Ely says. “And we’ve been doing this—my family—for 100 years. So, we’re dedicated, and we’re totally loyal to the brand and to our customers.”
There’s something almost sentimental about that approach, particularly in an industry where operators rely heavily on a close rapport with vendors. “If you go to a place that concentrates on one thing and does one thing better than everybody else, that’s the place where you should go to buy your car,” Fellbaum says. [CD0126]
