“In other words, could you have an auto franchise which is just a storefront, or an online presence, not a huge car lot with numerous cars for sale???”
That’s what most dealerships were outside of major cities a few decades ago, before they consolidated into fewer and fewer bigger and bigger lots. Every now and then, out in the country, you’ll still find a dealership with maybe a couple dozen pickups on the lot, which does most of its business in custom orders. I would imagine that small dealerships are more common out west, where the distances to the nearest major city can be much, much greater.
The law of unintended consequences will be working in the background.