Boyle Buick Inc. has been serving Harford County for nearly 30 years. But Clarence Boyle Jr., who took over the Abingdon dealership started by his father, is not certain that the business will be around to pass on to the next generation.
Boyle Buick is just one of a number of Maryland dealers caught in a national shakeout that could result in the elimination of up to 20 percent of the state's new-car outlets.
Acknowledging that there are too many dealers for all to flourish and provide adequate customer service, the Big Three automakers -- General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. -- and most of the import manufacturers have aggressive plans to cut their sales organizations.
GM, the nation's largest automaker, is looking at the elimination of 1,300 dealerships to bring its total down to about 7,000.
Chrysler has said it wants to close 600 dealerships by the end of the decade, which would reduce its dealers to 4,000. And Ford is looking at eliminating several hundred outlets, mostly among its Lincoln-Mercury franchises.
Volvo Cars of North America Inc. has talked about eliminating one of every four of its 367 U.S. outlets.
"All of the manufacturers are looking at their number of dealers in the United States to determine if they have the right number and if they are in the right locations," said Jake Kelderman, executive director of industrial affairs at the National Automobile Dealers Association in McLean, Va., a trade group representing the owners of 40,000 auto franchises.
Dean Rotondo, a spokesman for GM's North American operations, said the moves are designed to make dealers "more profitable and give them more vitality. It's a win-win situation for everybody."
Dealers agree. Nobody is eager to knock a plan designed to make them more profitable, but they all want to be around to share in the better times.
But that's not going to happen.
"I expect 20 percent of the new-car dealerships in Maryland to disappear within the next 10 years," said Jacob J. Cohen, a partner and head of the automotive division at Walpert, Smullian & Blumenthal, a Towson accounting and management consulting company that counts more than 100 of the state's 360 auto dealers among its clients.
He said that 8 percent could be gone within five years.
"There are about 350 dealers in Maryland at this time, and my guess is that number will get down to 300," said John McWilliams, a third-generation Ford dealer in Indian Head and a director of the Maryland New Car and Truck Dealers Association.
