Word: potamkin
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Reigning champion of the new breed is New York City's Victor Potamkin, who last year sold $722 million worth of cars, including 3% of Cadillac's production line. Potamkin will not sell competing makes in the same store, but his 29-dealership empire, spanning the East Coast, has a total of ten different brands. In Denver, Leo Payne sells cars built by GM, Ford, Chrysler, AMC, Volkswagen, Volvo, Daimler-Benz, Subaru and Nissan. San Francisco's Martin Swig explains the megadealer's credo: "I don't care where a car comes from as long as it meets the needs...
...auto companies originally did not like the move to megadealers. General Motors tried to control its dealers by limiting them to just one GM franchise. Potamkin avoided that constraint by keeping only one GM dealership in his name and letting his sons own the others. Other dealers who wanted to increase revenues started taking on hot-selling imports. Owners of Chevrolet or Cadillac franchises were soon selling German and Japanese cars as well. This year GM changed its rules, allowing dealers to own five separate GM franchises and invest in five more...
...auto lots are going the way of the corner grocery. While megadealers represent only 11% of the 25,000 car dealers in the U.S., they account for 30% of the industry's profits. Explains Auto Consultant Leonard Sherman of Booz, Allen & Hamilton: "It drives Cadillac nuts when they hear Potamkin advertising Cadillacs by emphasizing lower prices. They don't want that image. But the company dares not try to stop him because they'd be shooting themselves in the foot...
...Thou Shalt Not Kill, a lengthy dirge for long-lost friends, mostly poets: "What happened to Robinson who used to stagger down Eighth Street, dizzy with solitary gin? ... Where is Leonard who thought he was a locomotive? . . . What became of Jim Oppenheim? . . . Where is Sol Funaroff? What happened to Potamkin? . . . One sat up all night talking to H. L. Mencken and drowned himself in the morning." Then the Rexroth verse turns to a super Bohemian and aman who was also a good poet: Dylan Thomas. When Rexroth first read the poem, 500 fans stormed The Cellar (seating capacity...
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