According to the latest Motortrend magazine there are 21,650 new-car dealers (all makes) in the US, down from 25,025 in 1988.

So even though the population has grown over the last 17 years there are over 3,000 fewer new-car dealers, but I'm sure this is signifying a trend of larger but fewer car dealers.

 

there are very few "mah and pah" dealers around here anymore, the vast majorty are run by a corporation of some sort.

"courtesy" dealers
"auto nation" dealers

etc etc

 

I would bet that Oldsmobile, Plymouth and Eagle accounted for a great majority of those dealerships....

 

Back when I sold cars (1998-2000) the dealer told me that the small town dealers were being weeded out. He had inquired about buying a one and GM told him that they wouldn't approve it. GM said that the small town guy could keep the dealer franchise in the family as long as they wanted, but they wouldn't approve a sell to someone else. I can't remember the exact reason for this.

He also was tellling me about GM buying out all the dealers in a market somewhere and were experimenting with company owned dealers. I suppose to control the price. Not sure how that went, been a few years ago.

The dealer he owned had been family owned for over 90 years until about a year or two ago. He sold out and retired. He got to where he hated GM. He said back in the day they were a great company, but in the last 10-15 years they had gotten terrible. He was probably one of the smartest business people I've ever met.