NADA Leaders Question Claims of Dealer Overpopulation; Creative Retailers Abound

All franchised car dealers don't think alike, especially when it comes to the hot-button topic of whether there are too many of them.

Whoever says there are — and the chorus is concentrated at the factory level — might not have surveyed the many dealers who challenge the claim that the nation is overpopulated by car dealers, particularly those representing domestic brands.

“Market play and the individual business owner always determine that no two people could agree on the exact, correct number of dealers,” says Annette Sykora, who becomes the National Automobile Dealers Assn.'s first woman chairperson at the annual convention this month.

Sykora, owner of Ford-Mercury, Ford-Lincoln-Mercury and Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep stores in Slaton, TX and Levelland, TX, says NADA represents all dealers and it would be anti-competitive to get into a debate about how many dealers there should be.

NADA's outgoing chairman, Dale Willey, who owns a GM store in Lawrence, KS, asserts that overdealering is overstated. What's more, Willey agrees with his NADA board that dealers, not their franchisors, should decide when and if to close up.

Meanwhile, a look at smaller-town dealers shows how unique they are in coping with sales reverses. A few examples of dealers thinking creatively, often in the face of adversity include: