Provo luxury vehicle co. beats Utah law, names SLC franchisee

Provo’s Vanderhall Motor Works can finally sell its high-end, three-wheel roadster to buyers in Utah. Wayne Dupied, owner of an EagleRider used motorcycle sales and rental franchise at 2476 W. California Ave. in Salt Lake City, has become the first-in-the-nation franchised dealer for Vanderhall.

Provo’s Vanderhall Motor Works can finally sell its high-end, three-wheel roadster to buyers in Utah. Wayne Dupied, owner of an EagleRider used motorcycle sales and rental franchise at 2476 W. California Ave. in Salt Lake City, has become the first-in-the-nation franchised dealer for Vanderhall.

“We are thrilled to have our home state be the site of the world’s first dealership,” said Steve Hall, president and chief operating officer at Vanderhall. “The opening of Vanderhall of Salt Lake and other major U.S. cities indicates considerable progress toward our goal of becoming the country’s top luxury autocycle maker.”

A longstanding Utah law limits automobile manufacturers to selling its vehicles through franchised dealerships. The issue kept Vanderhall from exhibiting at the Utah International Auto Expo in Sandy earlier this year. Vanderhall purchased booth space at the annual event, but before the event started, workers walled off the space reserved for the company and its representatives were told that because they sold directly to the public, they could not exhibit at the show.

The law in question is the same that requires Utahns to go out of state to purchase a Tesla electric automobile. When Tesla tried to open a showroom on State Street in South Salt Lake last year, it was denied a license. Although the showroom opened, it can only sell used cars that are not covered by the franchise law.

But now, Vanderhall can sell its luxury vehicles because of its franchise agreement with Dupied. “Vanderhall builds such an amazing product. I am excited to offer Utah residents these head-turning, well-built autocycles that are manufactured right here in Utah,” Dupied said.

A grand opening event at the new dealership was held last week.

Vanderhall Motor Works is manufacturing about one of its luxury vehicles per week at the headquarters of Utah engineer David Hall’s NewVistas Foundation in Provo. Hall is the Mormon tycoon who is buying hundreds of acres of land near the Vermont towns of Sharon, Royalton, Tunbridge and Strafford where someday he hopes to build high-tech communities of 20,000 people in one-square-mile blocks. Vanderhall’s COO Steve Hall is his son.

Hall’s dream is purportedly based on Mormon founder Joseph Smith’s vision of the “City of Zion.” As Hall tells it, the plat plan for his utopian communities appeared to Smith while he was studying Enoch, an Old Testament prophet who designed a city so perfect it was whisked off to heaven. The text accompanying the blueprint, written out by Smith and his associates, says each plat should house 15,000 to 20,000 people within one square mile and that the design should be replicated worldwide. Written in 19th century English, it reads: “When this square is thus laid off and supplied, lay off another in the same way, and so fill up the world in these last days, and let every man live in the city, for this is the City of Zion.”

Hall stumbled upon the document in the 1980s while researching Mormon history in a Salt Lake City library. “I’m the only one who’s really studied this scroll, to this day,” Hall told Bloomberg News, “the only one who knows every word.” Hall had always been interested in architecture and planned communities and quickly became obsessed with the plat, eventually using Smith’s vision to calculate every aspect of his NewVistas communities. “Other people might say, ‘You’re trapped in this box,’ but it actually helps me solve problems,” he said. “I’ve used it to triangulate right down to the itty-bitty details, like what type of wood to use.”

Hall’s children head separate divisions of NewVistas that concentrate on different aspects of the compact communities. One division is working on a 4-foot kitchen while another is developing a water-efficient toilet that also measures blood pressure, weight and overall health by using sensors and sampling what passes through it.

Hall said his project is still many years off but plans to break ground soon on a hotel where he and his wife, along with other foundation employees, can test the compact living conditions that NewVistas would require.

The first NewVistas community, Hall said, will likely be built in Provo, where he’s also in the process of amassing 5,000 acres (and meeting with significant resistance from Provo residents). Once that’s up and running, he’ll move on to Vermont and then across the globe.

As Hall envisions it, the economy of a NewVistas community will be based on small-scale business and industry, in a totally sustainable model. The undersized vehicles being developed by Vanderhall are an example of how he envisions the NewVistas model.

Hall has pledged to spend at least $150 million to develop his ideas, which he said will involve building prototypes and even entire communities at other sites before any construction occurs in Vermont. He is spending some of the money to build his 80,000- square-foot facility at a Provo industrial park he owns, where he hopes to create the systems, including the Vanderhall assembly line, for his planned community. He already employs more than 150 at the foundation — most of them engineers.

Hall plans to market the products currently under development as soon as they’re viable and use proceeds to help fund his first NewVistas community, which he says will likely require at least $3 billion.

The Vanderhall vehicles consist of an aluminum frame and carbon fiber body. The engines and braking systems are made by General Motors. The company started production over a year ago and Hall said in the future, the same technology can be used to design other vehicles with electric engines and batteries, once major manufacturers ramp up production.

The current production model of the Vanderhall roadster is the Laguna, with a base price of $58,850. An all-inclusive model — one with all the options — is called the Laguna Bespoke and sells for $77,000.