Nissan to dealers: If you pay for it, we will go

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

A few days ago, Nissan blew more dark clouds over the industry by announcing that it would not be participating in Detroit’s North American International Auto Show or in the Chicago Auto Show. Lacking any new models to unveil, it argued, it would instead bow out and save some money in these tough times, credit crunch, economic uncertainty, headwinds, etc., etc., etc.

This generated a huge amount of press. Far more than the collective bailing on Detroit by Ferrari, Suzuki, Rolls-Royce, Land Rover and Mitsubishi, the decision by one of the world’s largest automakers to ditch two of the nation’s four largest shows (the others being L.A. and New York) was big news.

Not so fast. This evening Nissan announced that, although it was still staying away from Detroit, it would participate in the Chicago show in February after all. There is a catch, however. Nissan isn’t paying the full freight. Its dealers are picking up the cost of staffing the company’s display.

‘After a careful review of (the decision to withdraw) with our North Central Region management and our Chicago dealers, we have found a way to maintain a presence at the Chicago show through our dealers, while still demonstrating the fiscal responsibility required by these challenging times,’ said Nissan spokesman Alan J. Buddendeck in a statement.

It’s a nifty trick. Get your sales-starved dealers, desperate for promotions, to foot part of the bill for an extremely spendy event. In fact, Chrysler pulled it off at the L.A. Auto Show, on now, by having its dealers pay for its booth entirely.

(A Chrysler spokesman said that’s standard practice, but other car makers disagreed. And the fact that Chrysler’s display has no additional overhead lighting, the only such stand at the entire show, speaks to the exceptional nature of the arrangement.)

So if three is a trend, the question is, with Chrysler and Nissan on the bandwagon, who’s next to pass at least part of the buck to their franchise-owning car salesmen pals? General Motors, anyone?

--Ken Bensinger