GM Cuts Oklahoma City Dealership

Staff and Wire Reports

OKLAHOMA CITY - An Oklahoma City dealership has learned they are one of the 1,100 dealers being cut today by General Motors.

City Chevrolet, 5000 West Reno Ave., received a letter informing them of GM's decision.

GM is not releasing the list of dealers, but says the dealerships were selected because of weak sales.

GM says it's network is too big, causing dealers to compete with each other and giving shoppers too much leverage to talk down prices and hurt the company's future sales.

"Too many dealers, in actuality, are a problem," Mark LaNeve, GM's vice president of North American sales and marketing, said in a conference call with reporters.

The cuts are part of a larger GM plan to drop 2,600, or nearly 42 percent of its 6,200 dealerships as the automaker tries to restructure outside of bankruptcy court and become profitable again. Thousands of jobs will likely be lost and governments will lose untold dollars in tax revenue as dealerships are forced to close.