Capital Automotive Achieves Exceptional Corporate Governance Ranking from Institutional Shareholder Services

MCLEAN, Va., April 15 -- Capital Automotive REIT , the nation's leading specialty finance company for automotive retail real estate, today announced that in April 2003, Institutional Shareholder Services released an updated Corporate Governance Quotient (CGQ) for Capital Automotive. According to the CGQ report, Capital Automotive outperformed 99.8% of the companies in the S&P SmallCap 600 and 100% of the companies in the real estate group. The CGQ is a ranking system that scores companies on their corporate governance performance.

Thomas D. Eckert, President and Chief Executive Officer of Capital Automotive, said "We are very proud of this ranking, which further exemplifies our efforts to provide our shareholders and other stakeholders with the best practices for corporate governance. As always, our goal is to operate our business with the highest ethical standards and complete transparency."

Capital Automotive's corporate governance documents can be found on the Company's Website at www.capitalautomotive.com.

About Capital Automotive

Capital Automotive, headquartered in McLean, Virginia, is a self- administered, self-managed real estate investment trust that acquires real property and improvements used by operators of multi-site, multi-franchised automotive dealerships and related businesses. Additional information on Capital Automotive is available on the Company's Web site at http://www.capitalautomotive.com/.

As of December 31, 2002, the Company had invested nearly $1.6 billion in 292 properties, consisting of 412 automotive franchises in 28 states. The properties are leased under long-term, triple-net leases with a weighted average initial lease term of 14.3 years.

  Contact Information:

  David S. Kay
  Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
  Capital Automotive REIT
  703-394-1302