Posted on 11/10/2007 6:13:58 PM PST by PAR35
Troy Aikman Ford of Dallas, housed in a 30-year-old facility on North Central Expressway that has struggled for decades, will close by the end of the month.
Ford Motor Co., which is reducing dealers nationwide, will buy the dealership from the former Dallas Cowboys star and retire the franchise. That will leave the Dallas metro area with 16 Ford dealers.
The dealership's location, on the east side of North Central Expressway near the Walnut Hill Lane exit, was a challenge for several dealers before Mr. Aikman bought it in May 2005.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
I’m surprised he lasted there as long as he did. It’s a terrible location for a dealership and as the article pointed out, several other people tried to make a go of it over the years.
Most of the dealerships along Central Expressway, up into Richardson, are sitting on land that is more valuable than the dealerships are. I know, I used to work at one of them and I’m surprised the owner hasn’t already sold out because his business has been declining for several years, partly because it’s really hard to get in and out of the service department driveway, plus there’s no customer parking. I think the fact that it’s not a domestic badge is all that’s keeping the place going.
OMG they are down to only 16 Ford dealerships in Dallas? That’s ALL??? /sarc
It was Leadership Ford (”Customers For Life!”) for decades before then. Ever since the rebuild of 75, that dealership has been struggling - and doomed.
I’ve always been surprised that Aikman had bought that dealership. All he did is prolong its death agonies.
For those that don’t know, US 75 is the main north-south corridor in Central Dallas. It has recently been converted to an “elevated surface” highway with large noise abatement walls which block out almost all view of the dealership while approaching it from either direction. All you can see is the Ford sign and the enormous American flag.
Let me guess, Toyota of Richardson?
There's his problem - right there...
It was probably sold to him as a turnaround prospect about the time Central was re-built. The Dodge dealership north of there on the other side - just above LBJ - went broke a few years ago. It's my recollection that Chrysler let it slide for a long time because it was a minority owned dealership, but finally had to give up. Didn't the Mazda dealer up in Richardson move or close?
As far as value of the land - there is a building that looks like a call center with a large parking lot just south of LBJ that has been pretty much vacant for a decade or two, unless something has happened to the property recently. And there are a bunch of old, not so nice, apartments just across Central from the Ford dealership.
I’ve probably been by this dealership but in general one of the many things the domestics have going against them is that they have too many dealerships. Every little wide spot in the road has some kind of dealership and it simply isn’t feasible to turn a profit or give the customer a good deal when the large well established metropolitan dealerships are selling their cars at or near cost. It’s just craziness. All the domestics needs to scale back, cut their employees back; especially the unions and they might start to turn a profit again. A well constructed and reliable car simply doesn’t need to go back to the dealership anyway during the warranty period except for oil and lubrication. And any dealership of any brand can do that for any other brand. It need not be done at the brand name dealership. I would stay away from these franchise operations though. I wouldn’t trust them to put the oil plug back in. You can even buy your tires there now at better than competitive prices. And everything is on the computer so the records are right there at their fingertips. But to sum up, there are simply too many marginal dealerships. Shut ‘em down.
I suspect the issue is more about an expert in one industry not being able to succeed in a totally different one.
At one point, Ford tried to consolidate most of the dealers in the DFW area. They ran afoul of a state law, and had to abandon the effort.
Nope. It used to be a Porsche-Audi-Mazda. Now it’s only Mazda.
Yeah. That was Manuel Dodge, IIRC, at Midpark & Central.
No the Mazda place is still there but God knows how.
Classic BMW, a bit further up the road towards Arapaho is building a new facility on the Dallas North Tollway. I can’t remember if it is actually in Plano or if it is farther north.
OK, yeah, I live near that one.
No, that was Midpark Jeep that went bankrupt. Manuel Dodge is still there.
Midpark Jeep’s place was empty for a while, now there’s a Buick/GMC dealer there - and I don’t think they’re going to do any better.
Looks like the Manuel Dodge site is now selling GMC trucks.
Oh, also, Classic has already moved out, their new place in Plano has been done for a while. Boardwalk VW is supposed to be taking over Classic’s old digs.
White flight kills businesses.
Oh yeah, it was Midpark Jeep. Hard to keep track of all these places when they come and go so much. I haven’t worked for a dealership since 1999 when Rodger Meier Cadillac sold out to Sewell. That was another case of the land there on LBJ being too valuable to use as a car lot.
Could have stayed with Sewell, but I had worked for them in the early 80’s and didn’t like the changes they had made so I “retired”.
Speaking of Buick - is Don Snell still there on Central?
I rarely get over that way so I didn’t know Classic had already left. Kind of surprised that Central - er, Boardwalk is going in there. They have more parking at the present location. Unless they are splitting up the operation and putting used cars down at the old Classic place. I’ll have to ask around and see what I can find out. I still know some folks from those 2 places.
The area just north of there has been Black since the 1940s. The area hasn’t changed a whole lot in the last 20 years or so.
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