Gm To Cut Back On Dealerships Automaker Planning Changes To Strengthen Brand Identity

If General Motors Corp. has its way, consumers soon will encounter a different auto marketplace, with fewer GM dealers selling more cars aimed at specific buyers.

For years, the differences between GM products have been fuzzy. Buick and Pontiac often have shared components, and they frequently shared display space on the showroom floors of many dealerships. Oldsmobile’s cars always seemed twinned with something, including vehicles from a sibling GM division, such as Cadillac, or more often, cars made by Japanese rivals.

But now, GM says it wants to end all that. It says it wants consumers to see a genuine difference between a Chevy and a Pontiac, or an Olds and a Cadillac, and that it would rather its dealers avoid selling imports alongside GM models.

The basic objectives of GM’s plan are these: to reduce GM’s current complement of 8,400 U.S. dealers to 6,700 over the next five years; to increase brand loyalty by more accurately aiming divisional products at specific markets, such as targeting first-time and budget-minded buyers with Chevrolet cars and trucks; to force GM dealerships to act as single-line dealerships as much as possible, even if that means forcing a dealer to eliminate another manufacturer’s vehicle line.

“The idea is to establish better management of GM brands” both at the corporate and retail levels, said one GM official.