CHRYSLER URGES DEALERS TO CONSOLIDATE BRANDS

Chrysler's Jim Press: The company urges dealers to consolidate brands.

February 9, 2008—Chrysler is addressing dealer consolidation by persuading dealers to put all three of its brands under one roof, Chrysler vice chairman and president Jim Press said Friday.

“We will do it in a collaborative way with our dealers,” Press told the J.D. Power Roundtable. Chrysler doesn’t have a timetable or a specific number of dealers it wants. When it rolls out its reduced product portfolio over the next five or six years, dealers who don’t have Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge will not have a full range of product. There are now 200 stand-alone Chrysler stores.

The consolidation plans are part of Project Genesis, Chrysler’s plan to “right-size” the company and its production. It’s critical, Press said, because “the domestic automakers have 48 percent of market share and 75 percent of the dealer body.”