Too many car dealers for Detroit’s cars

As a newspaper editor, where we’ve been seeing the ad dropoff for a year, I know this is true, but the “degree of its reality is still hard to fathom.

And, as the story notes, the decline of American dealers affects not just local papers, both small dailies and non-dailies. Little League teams, community projects and more all take a hit.

But, whether we, the Big Three, or the National Association of Automotive Dealers — which lobbied for state laws that prevent Detroit from eliminating dealers — like, more and more Big Three dealers are going to go on the closure, or foreclosure, block.

The Japanese pioneered the big dealer concept long before AutoNation et al came along. And, that strategy, too, is paying dividends.