The front of a red Ferrari 599.

The Providence Journal / Steve Szydlowski

FOXBORO, Mass. Ernie Boch Jr. has filled some big shoes.

His larger-than-life father, Ernie Boch Sr., built up the Norwood, Mass., auto empire through flamboyant self promotion on local TV ads, most famously for smashing a windscreen with a sledgehammer to emphasize that he was “smashing prices.”

“Being on TV in the early ’60s, there were so few channels he became a celebrity,” said Boch, CEO and president of the Boch Enterprises, during a recent interview at his Ferrari Maserati luxury car dealership here.

Boch Enterprises includes the top Honda dealership “on the planet”; a Toyota dealership in Norwood that has been No.1 in New England since 1980 and is No. 3 in the nation; a Toyota dealership in North Attleboro that is No. 3 in New England; two Scion dealerships, Ferrari Maserati of New England, a used car superstore and one of the nation’s two Subaru distributorships.

Of course, Boch himself is now equally famous in these parts for playing the fool in ads for his company — in one his face is superimposed on the body of a child in a car seat, and in another he riffs on the famous Coppertone ad with a small dog tugging down his swim shorts to reveal a white bottom.

And he is also famous for his band, Ernie and the Automatics, in which he plays guitar.

But the goofy showman and the musician were nowhere to be found the other day. Instead, Boch, 49, revealed an aggressive and focused business mind behind a casual, lanky frame and elegant, understated attire.

He said his business is good and expects the company to have revenues of $1.8 billion this year, up from $1.65 billion in 2006. “And we have zero debt,” he added. “No mortgages and all the cars are paid for in cash.”

He said his business model calls for a few large stores each selling big volumes. He compared the model to that of the other giant of New England auto dealerships, Herb Chambers.

He said Chambers sells about 40,000 vehicles a year through about 40 stores, while he sells some 30,000 vehicles through seven stores. He opened his hands and held them palms up to indicate that as far as he was concerned there was no question which business model was better.

“Just because you have a lot of stores does not mean you do a lot of business,” he said.

He also emphasized that he was interested in only five mainstream marques, noting that he has gotten out of Mitsubishi and more recently Dodge and Kia.

Instead, he said he wanted to focus on five manufacturers – likening them to the “Big Five” African safari animals (cape buffalo, elephant, leopard, lion and rhinoceros) — “Toyota, Honda, BMW, Lexus and Mercedes.”

“If I want to expand, it will be the big five,” he said, adding that he has no plans to expand outside of New England. “I want to stay pretty much in the area,” he said.

Boch acquired the Ferrari Maserati dealership two years ago and readily admits it does not fit his business model. “Ferrari transcends the auto industry,” he said. “(The cars) are rolling works of art.”

Indeed, not any one can walk into the dealership and buy a new Ferrari. “You have to have a Ferrari to buy a new Ferrari,” he said, noting that the waiting list is about four years, so most of his business is in used cars.

He said Ferrari makes 4,000 cars a year of which 1,500 are shipped to the U.S. He said they are distributed to the 32 dealerships nationwide, which gives him about 40 new cars a year. He is building a stylish new showroom for the dealership in Norwood that will double his space.

He is also building a new headquarters for his Subaru distributorship.

Boch might be described as a late bloomer. He earned a degree from Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1982 and then spent a number of years playing in “dance bands touring the country, but I was really not that talented.”

When he was 25, he decided he wanted to make some money and figured playing music was not the answer. “I had accumulated some debt and wanted to pay it off,” he said. “Six hundred dollars on things like phones bills.”

His father gave him a job in the showroom — “I’d always worked summers in the dealerships” — and he made enough the first week to pay off his debt. That was when he decided to stay.

“I said, ‘Wow, this is incredible,’ and I hung around and got hooked,” he said.

Apart from the money, he said he loved selling cars, “competing with the other sales people, putting the deals together.”

He said the company kept growing but the market was changing, driven mainly by the increasing presence of imports. “The signs were there,” he said. “In 1975, 98 percent of the market was domestic; in 1995, 75 percent of the market was domestic; and in 2007, less than 50 percent of the market was domestic.”

“And New England was the second area (after southern California) to have over 50 percent imports,” he said.

He said he expects the domestic’s market share to stabilize at just over 40 percent.

Boch has said it was difficult taking over the reins of the company after his father passed away in 2003, and argues that his flair for publicity, and its importance in building brand awareness and loyalty by putting a friendly face on the company, was inherited from him.

Apart from the ads, which are assembled by his own marketing team, Boch never shies from publicity, regularly appearing in TV and radio spots in the Boston area.

At the same time, he takes his music seriously, which is not surprising considering his degree from Berklee. He practices regularly with his band – he noted the other musicians have sold tens of millions of dollars worth of records with other bands – and regularly plays gigs to raise money for his foundation, “Music Drives Us,” which awards grants to music students.

And while he may be an aggressive businessman, the ads and the music certainly reveal a zest for life. Along with goofing around until he was 25, he also married late, at age 41, and has two young children.

But his ambition is still clearly carrying him forward.

He is extremely proud that his Honda dealership is now the No. 1 “on the planet,” let alone the nation. He wrested the title last year from Norm Reeves Honda in Cerritos, Calif., and emphasized the achievement by comparing the size of the population of the Boston metro area – 3.9 million – to that of Los Angeles – 12 million.

“It’s not about the money,” he said. “It’s about pushing the envelope, doing things that nobody has ever done before.”

For more information, check out www.boch.com

pelsworth@projo.com