For Car Dealers, The Hardest Sell Is on the Hill

The Washington Post ^ | June 4, 2009 | Dana Hedgpeth

[khnyny]

Jack Fitzgerald, owner of nine Washington area dealerships -- seven of which are on the chopping block by General Motors and Chrysler -- left his headquarters on Rockville Pike mid-morning yesterday, armed with a black bag full of thick consumer reports, pie charts and line graphs on cars. In the past three weeks, he's been a virtual one-man PR machine, meeting with local and national politicians and blitzing the media in a desperate attempt to save his business.

[khnyny]

["I can take care of me," he told them. "It's not about me. It's about viable businesses that are being told to close by irresponsible, incompetent managers from Detroit who are being kept on the job by a task force that lacks experience." He paused. "No, make that arrogant, not incompetent."]

[cookcounty]

Obvious Unanswered Question:

After thousands of pages and hours of video about the closing of the dealerships.......

...nobody seems to know:

Do dealerships get paid some stipend or something to be in business? Why on earth would Chrysler or GM want their dealer locations closed??? How could they possibly benefit from that??
If Coca Cola was having a rough time, would they refuse to sell through 7-11 and half the grocery stores??? This makes no sense.

A friend suggested that if they have fewer dealerships it becomes a hassle for purchasers to get warranty work done and thus GM would not have to pay out as much for warranty work....any ideas?