The closing of Chrysler and GM dealerships is going to be an expensive process for Americans. The taxpayers have already been fleeced of billions of dollars to put Chrysler and GM under the thumb of the federal government, but it will be difficult to estimate the additional costs of closing 789 Chrysler and 1200 GM dealers.
As we reported yesterday, even some Democrats are beginning to question President Obama and auto his task force. They can’t understand why profitable, top-performing Chrysler dealers are being forced to close their doors. We’ve been asking this and other questions about the Dealergate scandal for weeks, and we’re encouraged to see some House Democrats finally getting curious about how the decisions were made regarding which | Read More »
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and Reps. Chris Van Hollen and Daniel Maffei, in a letter today to President Barack Obama, expressed their “growing concern” over the closings of GM and Chrysler dealerships. Moreover, the three congressional Democrats say they want to hear a “compelling justification” how closing healthy dealerships will improve the ailing automakers’ fiscal situation. The three were asking their Capitol Hill | Read More »
Since we last checked in on the Dealergate fiasco, the new media has been busy doing the work old media reporters should have been doing all along. Obama sycophants on the Left end of the blogosphere continued with their “nothing to see here, folks” defense of their beloved savior-president. And Chrysler dealers on the closed list offered evidence in court that most had sales figures | Read More »
At The Truth About Cars, Ken Elias posits that though Monday’s announcement of the GM bankruptcy was a bad day for the once dominant U.S. automaker, it was an even worse day for Toyota. His theory is that GM, bolstered with taxpayer dollars and free from creditors’ demands, will come roaring back with bold new products and lower fixed costs, more competitive than ever: Toyota | Read More »
Since our last update of the blogger investigation into the Chrysler dealer closing fiasco now known as Dealergate, another significant benchmark has been met. All of the information from the .pdf list of Chrysler dealers remaining open has been put into spreadsheet format. With both lists now in this form, researchers are finally able to analyze the MOPAR dealer data and find significant patterns buried deep | Read More »
Since our update yesterday, it has come to light that the dealerships that dodged (sorry, couldn’t resist) Chrysler’s silver bullet have circled their wagons minivans and are doing their fair share of PR work for the government-controlled reorganization of what was once the country’s third largest automaker.
Since we last checked in, here are the latest developments in the rope line of strange occurrences Doug Ross has dubbed Dealergate (Some bloggers prefer Mopargate, but many non-motorheads won’t get it. Dealergate it is). In another of the many pesky coincidences to be found in this story, car czar Steven Rattner, the real head of President Obama’s auto task force, is married to Maureen | Read More »
Is the Obama administration punishing Chrysler dealers for their politics? A preliminary analysis by Doug Ross suggests that could be the case. There were too many things about the selection of dealerships to be closed that just didn’t add up. Some of the dealers chosen to be terminated were among the more successful outlets in the Chrysler dealership network, and many of them had been | Read More »
The Washington Times: Dealers from across the country lobbied desperately on Capitol Hill on Wednesday on the eve of bankrupt Chrysler’s expected announcement that it will close 800 of its 3,200 dealerships. GM is expected to close 2,600, or 40 percent, of its 6,300 dealerships As part of their plans to get taxpayer-funded bailouts from the Obama Administration, GM and Chrysler both had to promise | Read More »
In a stunning move, the Obama White House announced today that GM and Chrysler must end their involvement in NASCAR stock car racing at the end of this season to remain eligible to receive additional financial aid from the government.
The automobile industry’s domestic sales figures for 2008 are out, and to absolutely no one’s surprise, they do not paint a pretty picture. With the exception of BMW’s Mini and Subaru, all brands posted losses – yes, even Toyota and Honda. Chrysler took the biggest hit, as its sales were off by 30%. General Motors sales dropped nearly 23%, and Ford managed to do only slightly better | Read More »
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