AUTOMOTIVE : Mitsubishi Launches Plan to Gain Dealers, Build on Sales Records

Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America, the Cypress-based domestic distributor of Mitsubishi cars and trucks, is pushing an aggressive dealer expansion program--one that has helped it achieve record sales in the midst of an industrywide downturn in retail auto sales.

The company is aiming for 650 dealerships nationwide by 1992. It ended the first quarter with 425 dealers, up from 310 just six months earlier, says Rick Lepley, vice president of sales.

The expansion program has been helped by several factors, not the least of which is that parent Mitsubishi Motor Corp.--which had been hampered for years by a relatively low import quota--recently opened a domestic production facility in partnership with Chrysler and has seen sales in the U.S. more than double in the past year.

That has helped it attract dealers, who, after all, like to glom onto a product that sells well.

In addition, Mitsubishi isn’t exactly a household word in places like Hungry Horse, Mont. So it is easy to promise new dealers in less-densely populated areas of the country and large, exclusive territories--something Ford and Toyota find difficult to do.

Mitsubishi Motor Sales also has acknowledged that the cost of opening a new dealership can be prohibitive in some areas. The company has begun purchasing land to lease to dealers when it can.

And Mitsubishi is planning to build some dealerships itself, Lepley said. The focus will be on high-rent areas, including Yorba Linda, Palm Desert and parts of Florida.

“What we want to do is cut the up-front costs to the dealer, who then will buy the facility back from us over a period of time,” Lepley said.