Ernie Boch, Jr., CEO, president and spokesman of Boch Enterprises, a $1 billion business comprised primarily of automobile dealerships in Norwood, Massachusetts.[1] Boch is a local celebrity in the Greater Boston area who has a passion for music, makes television cameos and has a creative approach to advertising and selling cars.[2]
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Ernie inherited the business and the catch phrase "Come on down!" from his father, Ernie Boch Sr. who is largely credited with bringing the "Automile" concept to U.S. Route 1, Norwood.[3] With this concept, a large cluster of competing automobile dealerships join together to publicize the "Automile" as an automobile shopping center.
Ernie Boch, Sr. received some criticism from the Boston Brahmin culture and other elements of the upper class as a member of the nouveau rich of the region.[4]
Boch has formed a band, Ernie and the Automatics.[5] Ernie and the Automatics album "Low Expectations" was on Billboard's Top Blues Album chart for six weeks, debuting at #7. He graduated from Berklee College of Music in Boston, and sits on the college's Board of Trustees.[1]
Boch appeared on the locally produced restaurant review show, The Phantom Gourmet. On September 8, 2007 he was a guest judge for the cleavage contest at King Richard's Faire, along with drummer Sib Hashian. He appears on the CW network's Creature Double Feature playing "The Ghoul".[6]
Boch has appeared in two episodes of the television show Rescue Me, "Black" and "Animal", as Captain Bernard, the coach of the NYPD hockey team.[6][7]
Boch also owns the Boston-based women's tackle football team, the Boston Militia.[5]
In a 2003 interview with The Boston Globe, in response to the question, "Why don't more women sell cars?" Boch responded, "They don't apply. They're intimidated by the industry. It's totally male-dominated."[8] This was perceived by some to be a sexist remark.[9]
In late 2009 a blogger of the web site bluemassgroup.com writing under the pseudonym "Ernie Boch III" (Boch has two children,[6] neither of them named Ernie Boch III[10]) called for a boycott of companies running advertising during the Boston region political talk radio program The Howie Carr Show.[11]
After contact with some of the advertisers, as a guest on an October 3rd episode of The Howie Carr Show Ernie Boch, Jr. offered a $2000 bounty to any individual who would reveal the identity of the blogger, saying to the show's host, "I’m going to tell you who he is so you can terrorize him every afternoon."[12]
Ernie's first car was a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle, British racing green. He bought it in 1974, when he was 16, from the used-car department at his family's Toyota dealership.[13]
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