Stadium Motors Is Latest Victim of Car-Sales Slump

Stadium Motors Inc., a Pontiac and Daihatsu dealer, has shut its doors, becoming the lastest victim of the nation’s slumping new-car market.

The operation, located across Katella Avenue from Anaheim Stadium, is the third Pontiac dealership and at least the ninth new car franchise to fold in the county during the last 12 months, according to the Orange County Motor Car Dealers Assn.

New car sales have plunged in the last year as consumers have tightened their belts, and some dealers say this year and next could be the worst in a decade or more. Local industry officials expect more failures before the industry improves.

A spokesman for the Pontiac Division regional office in Thousand Oaks said Stadium Motors notified the regional office last week that it was closing down. The spokesman said no other information about the dealership’s problems was available.

Stadium Motors officials could not be reached for comment.

Tom Albertini, general manager of Bob Longpre Pontiac in Westminster--one of the county’s three remaining Pontiac dealers--said the shutdown “doesn’t mean Pontiac is a bad brand, it just shows that you can’t make it any more with a single-line domestic dealership.”

Although Stadium also handled Daihatsu cars and trucks, Albertini said word in the industry was that it sold very few of them.

He said his own dealership has struggled for the past two years as a one-line dealer in a weak new car market but now is adding Suzuki cars and trucks to help attract more buyers.

“The only thing that has been keeping us in business is that we have a very strong service department that has carried us through these lean times,” Albertini said.

Other local Pontiac dealerships that closed this year are Executive Pontiac and GMC Truck in the Tustin Auto Center and Hix Pontiac in Costa Mesa. Executive closed in October while Hix was shut down in late spring.

Pontiac spokesman Carl Sheffer said that customers of any of the closed dealerships should contact the nearest operating Pontiac dealership to arrange for continued service. The other operating Pontiac dealers in the county are David J. Philips Buick, Pontiac & Mazda in Laguna Hills, and Buena Park Hyundai, Pontiac, Isuzu.