Earlier today, we reported the highest adjusted first quarter earnings in company history at $5.89 per share, a 193% increase over last year and record revenues of $4.3 billion.
During the quarter, total revenue grew 55% over last year and 52% over 2019, while total gross profit increased 55% over last year and 58% compared to 2019.
New vehicle revenue increased 60%; Used vehicle increased 55%; F&I increased 63%; and service, body, and parts increased 30% compared to the first quarter of 2020.
Total vehicle gross profit per unit for the quarter increased to $4,392 per unit, a $692 increase over last year, driven largely by a 24% increase in new vehicle gross profit per unit.
The Suburban Collection adds $2.4 billion in annual revenues, over 2,000 team members, 34 locations and is a key pillar of the Lithia & Driveway footprint in our most sparse North Central Region 3.
With nearly $6.5 billion in expected annualized revenues purchased since the launch of our five-year plan in July 2020, we are considerably ahead of our expectations.
The combination of elevated gross profit levels in the new and used vehicles, rapid integration of high-performing acquisitions, incremental lift from the new Driveway channel, significant improvements in all business lines, and strategic cost savings measures instituted last year led us to earning over $250 million of adjusted EBITDA in the quarter.
However, success requires infrastructure, financing solutions for all customers, reconditioning expertise and the procurement of high-demand scarce vehicles to quickly achieve scale with smooth execution, all of which Lithia & Driveway have established and have proven to be effective at executing on since 1946.
Hopefully, Dick Heimann, our former COO is listening in today, as the 1946 comment was especially made for him.
This is the first time in our history that we've been able to market and deliver our 77,000-vehicle inventory to the entire country under a single brand name and experience.
We are on target to achieve a run rate of 15,000 Driveway shop and sell transactions by year-end.
First, 97.8% of our Driveway customers during our first quarter were incremental and had never done business with a Lithia dealership before.
Second, we are seeing that it is taking 19 minutes on average for a customer to complete a full vehicle purchase transaction online with financing included.
We are also seeing that about 15% of all credit decisions are auto-approved.
43% of our sales are out of region and our average shipping distance is 732 miles with an average shipping fee of $477.
Lastly, we continue to build our online reputation, with an average Google Reviews Score of 4.98 stars out of 5.
Driveway's financing solutions with new vehicle leasing and captive manufacturer financing now totals 29 lenders and are available to consumers with auto approvals in a matter of seconds.
With these recent market launches, the Driveway brand message is now reaching over 67 million individuals or 21% of the population, a 16-fold increase over our two initial launch markets.
During the quarter, LAD's fintech arm, Driveway Finance Corporation, originated over 1,000 loans per month across the channels.
We continue to see Driveway's fintech platform elevating the experience for consumers with the ability to capture up to 20% of all vehicle sales transactions, further differentiating LAD in profitability.
Today, our team of 110 Driveway engineers and data scientists have developed a suite of consumer solutions and functionality that provides the first complete end-to-end digital ownership experience spanning the full vehicle ownership lifecycle.
For more than a decade, we have successfully purchased and integrated acquisitions that have yielded an after-tax return of over 25% annually.
As mentioned earlier, we completed the acquisition of The Suburban Collection in the Detroit, Michigan area earlier this month, adding a massive platform of 34 locations to our North Central Region.
Combined, these acquisitions strengthened our strategic network density in regions 2, 3, and 6 and are anticipated to generate nearly $3.1 billion in annualized steady state revenues.
Since launching our five-year plan nine months ago, this brings our total network expansion to over $6.5 billion, adding more than $4 in future annualized EPS.
Even with the pace being well ahead of schedule, we continue to replenish the more than $3 billion in revenue still under LOI and the more than $15 billion pipeline of potential acquisitions that we believe are priced to meet our disciplined hurdle rates.
First, new vehicle franchises create an accretive growth model with the self-generating profit engine of nearly $1 billion of EBITDA annually.
High ticket new vehicle margins are quite strong at 10% and the carrying costs are subsidized by our manufacturer partners.
These reconditioning centers are also utilized for the industry's highest or 50% margin service, body, and parts businesses.
These businesses bring 10 times the consumer lifecycle touch points as compared to used-vehicle-only retailers and allow for substantially lower marketing cost per vehicle sold.
With our technology poised for rapid scalability across our existing and future network, we are positioned to as quickly as possible lead Lithia & Driveway's progress toward $50 billion in revenue and $50 of earnings per share the first leg of our journey.
Each day, our leaders are rising to the challenge of achieving our 50/50 plan, evolving to meet consumer demand, developing our talent and living our mission of Growth Powered by People.
For the three months ended March 31, 2021, total same-store sales increased 28% over last year.
These increases were driven by a 29% increase in new vehicle sales, a 32% increase in used vehicle sales, a 30% increase in F&I revenue, and a slight increase in service, body, and parts revenues.
Comparing our 2021 results to a 2019 baseline, first quarter same-store sales increased 28% with new vehicle revenue up 23%, used vehicle revenue up 43%, F&I increased 32%, and service, body and parts increasing 6%.
For the quarter, our new vehicle business line increased 29% over last year.
Our average selling price increased 6% and unit sales increased 22%.
Gross profit per unit increased to $2,979 compared to $2,188, a $791 increase or up 36%.
Total new vehicle gross profit per unit, including F&I, was $4,778, an increase of $897 per unit or 23%.
At approximately $4,800 of gross profit per unit, new vehicles remain highly profitable with a 12% margin, similar selling cost per unit as used vehicles, and inventory carrying costs that are subsidized by our manufacturer partners.
For used vehicles, we saw a 32% increase in revenues for the quarter.
Gross profit per unit for the quarter was $2,426, an increase of 14% or $295 over last year.
Total used vehicle gross profit per unit, including F&I, was $3,994, an increase of $421 or up 12%.
Total used vehicle gross profit per unit began to normalize early in the quarter, but accelerated again in March finishing at $4,384 per unit.
Our used vehicle sales mix in the quarter was 20% certified, 59% core are vehicles three to seven years old and 21% value auto or vehicles older than eight years.
With over 60% of the annual 40 million used vehicles sold in the US being nine years or older, our continued strategy of selling deeper into the used vehicle age spectrum and our ability to procure the right scarce vehicles from multiple channels remains the catalyst for the future success and growth of Lithia & Driveway.
As of March 31, we had a 42-day supply of used vehicles and our 800 used vehicles procurement specialists are working diligently to ensure we are meeting the current demand environment with our focus on procuring scarce high demand used vehicles through the most profitable channels.
As a top of funnel new car dealer, 80% of our inventory comes from non-auction sources, which allows us to meet consumer demand in a low supply environment.
New and used vehicle sales are supported by our 1,500 experienced finance specialists that help match the complexity of consumers' financial position with lending options at over 150 financial institutions, including Driveway Financial.
In the quarter, our finance and insurance business line continued to show substantial improvement averaging $1,674 per retail unit compared to $1,557 the prior year, an increase of $117 per unit.
We continue to monitor this through the growth of our total gross profit per unit, which was $4,388 this quarter, an increase of $664 per unit or 18% over last year.
Our stores remain focused on the highest margin business lines, service, body, and parts, which decreased 1% for the quarter.
This was driven by a 7% increase in customer pay, a 12% decrease in warranty, a 6% decrease in wholesale parts, and a 14% decrease in body shop revenues.
But in March, we saw double-digit increases in service, body, and parts driven by a 32% increase in our highest margin customer pay work.
As a reminder, our service, body, and parts business see over 5 million paying consumers and brand impressions annually, which generate over 50% margins and remain a huge competitive advantage for Lithia & Driveway.
Same-store adjusted SG&A to gross profit was 64% in the quarter, an improvement of 990 basis points over the prior year, driven largely by the gross profit expansion in our new and used vehicles segment and recovery in service, body, and parts.
With our highest performing stores consistently maintaining an SG&A to gross profit metric in the mid 50s, our five-year plan continues to target an SG&A to gross profit level in the low 60% range.
For the quarter, we generated nearly $265 million of adjusted EBITDA, an increase of 154% compared to 2020 and $189 million of free cash flows, defined as adjusted EBITDA plus stock-based compensation, less the following items paid in cash, interest, income taxes, dividends, and capital expenditures.
As a result, we ended the quarter with $1.4 billion in cash and available credit.
In addition, our unfinanced real estate could provide additional liquidity of approximately $552 million for a combined nearly $2 billion of liquidity.
As of March 31, we had $4 billion outstanding of debt, of which $1.8 billion was floor plan, used vehicle, and service loaner financing.
The remaining portion of our debt is primarily related to senior notes and the financing of real estate as we own over 85% of our physical network.
On adjusted, our total debt to EBITDA is overstated at 4.3 times.
Adjusted to treat these items as an operating expense, our net debt to adjusted EBITDA is 1.7 times.
This means we could add over $1.2 billion in additional debt, which equals acquiring $4.8 billion in annualized revenues at our 25% purchase price to revenue metric, while remaining within our targeted range.
If our network growth and associated planned capital deployment would increase our leverage beyond 3 times for a sustained period, we would look to deleverage quickly through the equity capital market.
As a reminder, our disciplined approach is to maintain leverage between 2 and 3 times, as we continue to progress toward another sizable competitive cost advantage of achieving an investment-grade credit rating.
We target 65% investment in acquisitions, 25% in internal investment, including capital expenditures, modernization and diversification, and 10% in shareholder return in the form of dividends and share repurchases.
We continue to make strong progress in modernizing the consumer experience through Driveway and building a robust balance sheet, positioning us to be the leader in consolidating this massive industry, all while progressing toward our five-year plan of achieving $50 billion in revenue and $50 of earnings per share.

Summary:
Earlier today, we reported the highest adjusted first quarter earnings in company history at $5.89 per share, a 193% increase over last year and record revenues of $4.3 billion.
During the quarter, total revenue grew 55% over last year and 52% over 2019, while total gross profit increased 55% over last year and 58% compared to 2019.