Overview
Ernesto Automotores is an established used car dealership in Buenos Aires. With a growing inventory and an increasingly digital customer base, they needed a professional web presence that could showcase their vehicles, build trust with potential buyers, and generate qualified leads. The project delivered a landing page and deployment pipeline that gave the business a credible, modern digital storefront.
Role & Tools
Role & Tools
- UX Designer & Front-End Developer
- Led design, development, and deployment
- Managed ongoing maintenance and updates via automated workflows
Tools
- Vanilla PHP / HTML / CSS / JS (front-end development)
- Hostinger (hosting & deployment)
- Claude Code (AI-assisted development & FTP deploy automation via hooks)
- Figma (UX/UI design)
- markitdown (context compression for Claude Code sessions)
Core problem
Ernesto Automotores had no digital presence beyond word of mouth and informal channels. Customers searching online for used vehicles had no way to discover or evaluate the dealership's inventory, creating a gap between the business's reputation and its digital visibility.
Constraints
- Budget-conscious client: the solution needed to be cost-effective with minimal ongoing hosting costs.
- Non-technical stakeholder: updates and content changes needed to be manageable without developer intervention.
- Fast time-to-market: the client needed to be live quickly.
Solution
Designed and developed a clean, mobile-first landing page.
- Presents the dealership's identity, inventory highlights, and contact information.
- Includes clear calls-to-action — WhatsApp and phone — to drive lead generation.
- Hosted on Hostinger with an automated FTP deploy workflow via Claude Code hooks, enabling fast, low-friction updates.
Process
- 01
Discovery & content strategy
Worked with the client to define the key messages, vehicle categories, and trust signals — years of experience, location, contact methods — that would resonate with their target audience.
- 02
UX & visual design
Designed the page in Figma, focusing on a clean layout that works well on mobile. Prioritised scannable content, prominent contact CTAs, and a visual style consistent with the automotive sector.
- 03
Front-end development
Implemented the design in vanilla PHP, HTML, CSS, and JS — a deliberate choice for simplicity, performance, and low hosting requirements on Hostinger.
- 04
Deployment pipeline
Set up an automated FTP deploy workflow via Claude Code hooks, allowing updates to be pushed to the live site with minimal manual steps. This significantly reduced the friction of ongoing maintenance.
- 05
Client handoff
Delivered documentation and a simple process for requesting content updates, ensuring the client could manage the relationship without technical dependency.
- 06
Phase 2 — vehicle self-management portal
With a dynamic inventory, the client needed to add, edit, and remove listings without going through a developer each time. I built a back-office portal where staff upload new vehicles through a structured form covering brand, model, year, mileage, price, fuel type, transmission, colour, condition, photos, and notes; edit existing listings; remove sold vehicles; and preview how each listing appears before publishing. The attribute schema was defined with the client in a working session, balancing completeness with simplicity for non-technical users. The portal feeds the landing page directly, keeping the public inventory always in sync.
Results
- Launched a professional web presence for a business that previously had none.
- Lead generation via WhatsApp and phone CTAs integrated directly into the page.
- An automated deploy pipeline reduced update time from manual FTP management to a streamlined workflow.
- The dealership team manages their full inventory independently, with time to publish a new vehicle cut from a manual request cycle to a few minutes.
Conclusion
A focused, pragmatic web project that delivered real business value for a local SMB.
The combination of simple technology choices, strong UX fundamentals, and automated deployment tooling resulted in a fast, maintainable solution that fits the client's budget and operational reality.