After Getting the Boot, Car Dealers Regroup

CLARKSTON, Mich. — For two decades, Chuck Fortinberry made a decent living selling Chryslers and Jeeps in this town 40 miles north of Detroit.

Then last year, as part of Chrysler Group LLC's bankruptcy reorganization, Chrysler sent a letter informing him that his Clarkston Chrysler Jeep dealership was among 789 dealers the automaker was dropping.

Since then, Fortinberry has been on a journey to salvage something from his business and map out a new future. About 10 miles from his darkened dealership, Fortinberry has opened Ironton Rustic Furniture and Accessories, offering everything from tables and chairs to beds and couches, reported The Wall Street Journal.

"Selling Chryslers wasn't just my job, this is what I was," the 54-year-old Fortinberry said. "I was the Chrysler-Jeep dealer in Clarkston. I was the guy you went to when you needed jerseys for your baseball team. There was a lot I had to get through but I knew I had to move on."

Across the country, hundreds of car dealers are facing the same challenge while struggling with the taxes and other costs of maintaining a large piece of commercial property. Selling the land isn't an option for many of them, given the poor real-estate market

Last year, 1,603 dealerships closed their doors, most as a result of the Chrysler and General Motors Co. bankruptcies, according to Urban Science, a Detroit-based consulting firm. An additional 309 dealerships went dark in the first eight months of this year.

The closures leave about 18,170 dealerships in the U.S. employing 912,200 workers. More closings are now on tap after Ford Motor Co. last week said it wants to cut 175 of its Lincoln dealers within the next two years.

A dealership's closure can have a big economic impact in a small town. The average dealership last year employed 49 people and had an annual payroll of $2.4 million, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association. The payroll for all U.S. dealerships last year was $43.5 billion, and represented almost 13 percent of the nation's total retail-trade payroll, the association said.

Although there are no national studies, auto makers say many of the affected dealers who were already selling other brands have simply carried on by focusing on those remaining makes or by selling used cars.

Chrysler said as many as 85 percent of the 789 dealers it dropped are now selling other car brands. GM offered no estimate of how many of its 1,549 dealers set to lose their GM franchises Nov. 1 might stay in business by selling other brands.