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On the Carpet. Jim Moran believes that service is the dealer's own responsibility. "This is an area," he says, "that many auto dealers have ignored for some time—and it is the only way you can get repeat business in this competitive market." After each car is sold, Moran sends a form letter to the buyer inviting him to report on his service. He assigns a service superintendent for each new car, calls him on the carpet—and sometimes fires him—if too many things go wrong.
Moran believes that many dealers also neglect the potential of a used-car operation; his brings him in 51.5% of his gross profits. "Any new-car dealer who isn't in the used-car business," he says, "will not continue to be in operation. You cannot sell a new car unless you buy the old car.
The key to the business is being able to sell the used car." He reconditions used cars in a 40,000-sq,-ft, $500,000 plant that he grandly calls "the Courtesy Conditioning Assembly Line." Profits are bigger on the used cars; since each one is different, buyers cannot shop around and compare price.
Merely a Fad? As Ford's biggest customer, Jim Moran takes a vital interest in the company's plans—but he is a man of independent mind. He thinks that the trend to luxury compacts, combined with a trend to greater power, may eventually cause the compact to grow right up again into a bigger, more comfortable car. He considers present compacts—including his hot-selling Falcon—transient fads that will probably win not much more than their present (30%) share of the market.
Moran thinks dealers ought to be consulted when automakers are planning new models. "If I have $4,000,000 invested in my company," he says, "then I should be invited to see what I'm going to have to sell." For Detroit, the proliferation of new cars is a form of gambling, by which auto makers hope to hit on a widely accepted "ideal" car that they can produce in huge quantities, enabling them to drop weaker lines. Weaker dealers, too, are on the way out. Car dealers have decreased from 47,000 in 1951 to the present 32,000 —and even dealers themselves think there are still too many. They expect that there will be fewer dealers and more big "super market" dealers, carrying the full range of cars for the manufacturer. In such a mar ket there will be plenty of business and profit — for those who survive.
* Which last week placed first in the Mobilgas Economy Run from Los Angeles to Chicago, with an average of 32.68 miles a gallon. Other winners in their classes: Corvair Monza for four and six-cylinder compacts with automatic transmission (29.35 m.p.g.), Buick Special for eight-cylinder compacts (25.09), Plymouth Savoy for standard-sized cars (23.15), Ford Fairlane for low-priced V-8s (21.33), Chrysler Newport for medium-priced eights (19.9), and Cadillac for high-priced eights (18.93).