What if...

Although I obviously can't prove it, I do believe that the eventual loss of various beloved marques we speak of began way back in the early 1970s.  If only the North American auto industry had not been so complacent/arrogant/entitled and missed seeing how their eroding and short sighted QC and development programs were opening the door to the Japanese alternatives.  Had they done so their financial disaster that followed would not have necessitated the corporate "streamlining" that has occurred and that still is very much in evidence today.....let's be honest, they never truly recovered.  I suppose I might be criticized for having an overly simplistic mindset about all of this but I truly believe that if the understanding and attitude of North American auto executives in the early 70s had been more astute (including educating their union workers about the reality of how the importance of QC and general cooperation was to their futures) many of the economic issues, including the deletion of long established marques, may well have been avoided.  I do of course realize that the automobile business world has changed drastically in recent decades, including Japanese car assembly plants etcetera being established in North America, but generally speaking...we missed the boat and it's a damned shame.

@georgeschire, those are good ideas, and they sound reasonable. But reality sets in when you look a little deeper. Each franchise requires its own set of tools, training, and procedures. Ongoing training and inventory stocking are unique to each brand, even those under the same umbrella. Each of your salespeople has to attend dedicated training for each brand, maybe even each model, as well. If you can manage and afford all that, then the district reps from each franchise begin to sound ominous if they feel they're not getting enough exposure in your showroom or on your lot. After running several dealerships with multiple franchises for over twenty years, I began to quake every time one of them introduced a new model, much less a completely new brand. It gets difficult to turn a profit when a lot of your overhead goes toward satisfying the dealer requirements of each brand. 

Then we get into special models, like the Shelby Mustang or the C8. Each model requires even more specialized training, a dedicated technician or multiple technicians, "special tools," and an all-new stock of parts to inventory.  The dealer can only hope he sells enough of that model to cover his expenses. A dealer in a mid-sized town would have to absorb all those expenses and then hope some other dealer in a large metro area didn't undercut him with his online pricing. 

It gets worse for dealers who choose to remain loyal to one brand. If that brand doesn't offer a full line of vehicles in several sizes and trims, volume suffers, and dealers begin demanding a greater variety of offerings. No single brand can survive with only two or three vehicles on the lot. Watch what's happening to Chrysler right now to see how it impacts the dealership.

I'm not slamming the idea—it's been floating around the industry for years. It's just that, like our little models, the business is more complicated than most folks think. If it were that easy to make more money, there would be people clamoring for franchises. 

@jack-dodds, I agree with you. As late as the early eighties, a dealership I worked at won an award for excellence. All I could think was, "The only reason We won this is that we have to spend hours making the cars right after they arrive at our dealership." The factory gave us a 1.5-hour road-ready allowance at their warranty rate, which was nowhere near our standard hourly labor charge. Meanwhile, we were spending 3-5 hours making sure loose fittings were tightened, missing parts were located and installed, and faulty electricals were diagnosed and corrected, not to mention the occasional car that showed up with only three wheel covers or no mats, or a Dodge grill on a Plymouth minivan ("We were low on proper grills" was what I was told). We went to Highland Park for dinner, where I heard a top executive of Chrysler Corp say, "The Japanese are not a threat." All I could think of was, "Who are you trying to kid?" I knew the owner of a Honda dealership back then. We would visit each other. I asked him what he had to do to get his cars road-ready. He said, "We pop the wheel covers in and wash it. I'm actually making money off the allowance they give me." Somewhere off in the distance, I heard a bell tolling.