In January 1995, Jean Saliba and Souheil Saliba opened an import lot on North Olden Avenue in Ewing. Jean bought the cars. Souheil was the mechanic. The first month, J&S Autohaus sold a third of one car. There was almost nothing on the ground.
By April 11, 1998, The Times of Trenton had them on the Weekly Auto Dealer page. Next to a photo of Jean, the line was “Import automobiles are our specialty.” The dealer box listed three and a half years, about 1,200 cars, nine employees, and two lots — 1723 N. Olden and 1765 N. Olden — open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. More than 100 pre-owned Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Volvo, Saab, and Japanese cars sat there, most of them off Manheim’s lease auction. Every car went through a 29-point safety check. Off-lease cars carried a warranty a buyer could extend to 100,000 miles. Jean and Souheil were the owners. Dominic Leopardi was the sales manager.
George J. Saliba is Jean’s son. He did not found the store. He grew up on it. Around 1998 he was a boy on that floor when a man walked in with a beer and a fight already started. The salesman froze. Jean sat the buyer down, closed the deal in minutes, and the man signed happy. George still talks about the tone, not the script.
He did not plan to stay. He told his mother he wanted to be an actor, then a car designer. In high school and college he wrestled. Senior year he was the 16th seed in a 16-man national bracket and beat the first seed in triple overtime. A WWE recruiter sitting next to Jean chased him for two months. Friends thought he was crazy to walk away.
After college he spent two years in New York recruiting for an IT firm, afraid to pick up the phone for the first three weeks. Then Jean called about an automotive-warranty job. George took it and drove New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In the parking lots, Jean handed him a laptop. Go online. Start buying cars.
That was the break. A sale ran every day at 1 p.m. George built a watch list of C-Class Mercedes and other $18,000 to $25,000 cars and called Jean from the road: white on beige, AMG sport, this one is running today.
The Mitsubishi store was losing money every month. George asked to come in. Jean said it was not time. Then George’s boss told him he was not focused. George quit the same day, called Jean, and still heard no. “I already quit,” he said. Jean’s answer was, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and he hung up.
They put him in parts. He launched a site called Luxury Auto Solutions, announced it on Facebook, and it died. One person came to look at a car. He kept buying anything the lot could turn. In the third month the Mitsubishi store made its first profit. In 2017 and 2018 the store spent about $150,000 a month on radio and cracked the top 25 Mitsubishi dealers in the country. Then COVID cut the traffic. He was sitting in his parents’ basement, about to turn 30, looking at a Tesla in the auction.
He bought it. The store made about $35,000 on that car in a week. He started buying every Tesla he could find. At the peak there were about 110 electric vehicles on the ground and later about 100 Teslas a month. He started sellmyev.com so an owner in California could sell from the house. His younger brother, John, had been looking at cars since he was a teenager. George took electric. John took Lamborghinis and Ferraris.
The Tesla book was one basket. The first time prices were cut, the store lost about $15,000 on every Tesla in stock. One month the book was down about $300,000. A wrong car gets moved on day one. It does not sit for 100 days. When the first Cybertrucks hit, he sold one to a football player for $230,000. Later he was selling them for about $70,000. He rode the wave, then looked for the next door.
The next door was a phone. He was still paying about $15,000 to film and air a weekly TV spot when a man came in to sell a Tesla Model Y. George asked to film the negotiation. The seller said no. George said they would film it and kill it if he hated it. A detailer held the iPhone. The clip went up the next day, drew about 3 million views and 25 seller leads, and the store bought 10 more Teslas off that one video. The free phone clip beat the TV buy. George went all in.
He posted twice a day and kept it off Instagram. Friends and family were not on TikTok. He almost quit two or three times before that Model Y. After Luxury Auto Solutions had flopped in public, he did not tell anyone about sellmyev.com until it worked. He used the same rule on the camera. When the account got too big to hide, he hired a cameraman and started YouTube in April 2024.
The inventory followed. Before COVID the lot was mostly cars under $50,000. After that it ran to about $1.2 million — 812s, SVJs, G-Wagons, Cullinans, the cars people already watched him buy. The money is in the buy. The car sells if the spec is right. Sellers now come from comments, livestreams, and DMs. A live night can bring six or seven cars. Cars have left Ewing for Canada, Dubai, and Africa.
The address is still 1723 N. Olden Ave., Ewing, N.J. 08638. Jean still comes in every day for a few hours. For a while he did not want the sons doing everything they were doing. Then they made money in their own markets, and he told them to stop asking and go. George buys on camera. John works the exotic book. People who have been on the desk 20 and 25 years are still there. New salespeople who last start on the lot before they get a phone.
The family also opened a buying office in Lebanon. A handful of buyers work American leads for Ewing. Customers there already ask how to sell him a car. He wants the next lot indoors, a building the family is proud of. Location stopped mattering once people would fly in or take a shipper.
Across YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and the dealership pages, the audience is more than 3 million followers. TikTok @georgejsaliba is at 1.2 million. Instagram @georgejsaliba is about 407,000. YouTube @georgejsaliba is about 890,000 subscribers, with 1.6 billion views. He used to spend about $50,000 a month on Google ads. He does not do that anymore.
A seller does not have to be in New Jersey. Send the car at jsautohaus.com/sell-my-exotic-car. The Ewing desk reviews it and writes an offer. If the number works, J&S arranges pickup anywhere in the United States and walks through the title and any loan. Inventory is at jsautohaus.com/inventory. Sales: (609) 245-6634. The store’s Google rating on that page is 4.4 from 1,469 reviews.
Import automobiles were the specialty when the lot could barely sell a third of one. The cars got rarer. The son put the buying on a phone. The offer is still written in Ewing.
J&S Autohaus Group is the family import dealership Jean Saliba and Souheil Saliba opened in Ewing, New Jersey, in January 1995. George J. Saliba, Jean’s son, is general manager. John Saliba works the exotic book.