AUTOMOTIVE : Campbell to Open County’s First Dealership for GM’s New Saturn
A slew of new players--including Daihatsu, Hyundai, Mitsubishi, Infiniti and Lexus--has crowded the new car field in recent years, contributing to the financial troubles many dealers are experiencing.
Ray Green, president of the National Automobile Dealers Assn., calls it “too many cars chasing too few customers.”
Now General Motors, which already markets seven brand names, is launching another.
What’s the poor new car dealer to do?
Well, John Campbell, president of Campbell Automotive Group, figured that he might as well sign on.
The Irvine-based megadealer will open the county’s first GM Saturn dealership this fall in Santa Ana and plans a second facility for Huntington Beach in 1991.
GM touts its new Saturn line of compact and subcompact cars as the import fighter. And Campbell knows something about imports: he also sells Porsches, Audis, Volkswagens, Mazdas and Nissans on seven lots in Orange County, in addition to Fords, Buicks and GMC trucks.
Campbell said his company--50% owned by a British firm--has exclusive rights from Saturn to the northern half of Orange County, from La Habra to Irvine.
He said he also has an unwritten promise from Saturn for right of first refusal to the southern half of the county when that franchise is offered.
The dirt lot at the Santa Ana Auto Mall that eventually will house the first Campbell Saturn dealership was the site earlier this week of the new GM division’s inaugural dealer dedication ceremony.
Ground won’t actually be broken until April or even May, Campbell said, but the folks at Saturn wanted to signal that a dealer network has been signed on and that Saturn dealerships will be opening late this year.
In all, there are 92 dealers in the first batch. They will build 108 dealerships, with those on the West Coast and in the Southeast scheduled to open first.
To get its Saturn franchise, Campbell Auto had to pay a franchise fee and agree to build separate but look-alike facilities for each dealership in its territory. The cost of each dealership, according to a Saturn official, ranges from $2 million to $4 million.
Campbell said his Santa Ana site was chosen for the dedication because it will be one of the first to open and because of the symbolism.
“Orange County has one of the highest import penetrations in the United States, and Saturn has been targeted to fight import sales,” Campbell explained.
Saturns will be built at a new GM plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., 45 miles south of Nashville.
The initial models, a four-door sedan and a two-door coupe, will be priced in the $10,000 to $12,000 range, a Saturn spokeswoman said, and so won’t provide much competition for the Porsches, Audis and other higher-priced imports that Campbell Automotive already sells.
It might seem to the casual observer a bit schizophrenic for the same dealer to be selling imports and import fighters. But consider that GM--which is making the import fighter--uses its Geo nameplate to market imports made by Suzuki and Isuzu and recently bought half of Saab, the Swedish auto maker.
