Recession Victimized 4 O.C. Car Dealers This Week : Closures: Failure of three dealerships and the bankruptcy reorganization of another point to a downturn that keeps buyers away from big-ticket items.

Underscoring the reality of a recession expected to last well into 1992, three Orange County new-car dealers closed their doors this week and a fourth filed for bankruptcy reorganization.

Garden Grove Mitsubishi, which opened late in 1989, and Santa Ana Nissan, which had been in business since 1970, both shut down operations Friday morning--victims of consumers’ continued reluctance to make major purchases.

Earlier this week, Anaheim Nissan surrendered its franchise and reopened in the same location as a used-car dealership under the name Anaheim Foreign Car Center.

And on Wednesday, Anaheim Mitsubishi filed for protection from creditors’ claims under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy code.

Jack Pollock, Anaheim Mitsubishi president, said he filed the petition because of a dispute with his principal lender, Mitsubishi Motor Credit of America, but acknowledged that, like most other new-car dealers, he has been plagued by a sales slump that began nearly three years ago and shows no signs of letting up.

“We have assets,” he said, “but we don’t have liquidity” because the assets are the cars he has purchased from Mitsubishi but can’t sell fast enough to meet his debt repayment schedule.

Pollock said he believes he will be able to come out of the Chapter 11 “fairly soon” with a new financing arrangement. “We are talking to Mitsubishi (Motor Credit), and they are talking to us,” he said.

A 15-year veteran in new-car sales--the last three as a Mitsubishi dealer--Pollock said the economic climate for dealers now “is a lot tougher than in the past. Sales are just lukewarm, and the slump has lasted longer than ever before. It has been really hard to motivate the customer in this market.”

Officials at Santa Ana Nissan, Anaheim Nissan and Garden Grove Mitsubishi could not be reached for comment Friday.

Kevin Allen, executive director of the Orange County Motor Car Dealers Assn., said 1991 has been an especially tough year for dealers in Southern California because the recession seems to have hit harder here than in other areas of the country.

“The feedback I’m getting for dealers is that the market is as tough as it has ever been. There is reason for a lot of concern about the future at a lot of dealerships,” he said.

Allen said he and others in the new-car retailing industry agree with economic forecasters who say that it will be late 1992 before there are any signs of recovery.

At Garden Grove Mitsubishi late Friday afternoon, employees said they were prohibited from speaking to the press.

But when a reporter drove up to the lot and asked if it was open, a man wearing a Mitsubishi cap and jacket and carrying a clipboard said that he was “in the process of closing this place down.”

“Why?” the reporter asked.

“We’re closing this month because you weren’t here last month to buy a car,” the man replied.