Last domestic car dealership closes in San Francisco

Danny Tse

Yes, SF has dealerships for Honda, Toyota/Scion, Nissan, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Mini-Cooper, Lamborghini....and even the Smart Car. However, you want Ford, GM, or Chrysler? Sorry.

From the San Francisco Chronicle....

Add this to the list of San Francisco's distinguishing features: It does not have a single U.S. new car dealership within its 47.6 square miles.

The last one bit the dust 10 days ago, when San Francisco Ford Lincoln Mercury, on Van Ness Avenue's Auto Row, shut its doors without warning or explanation.

"We're referring people to Serramonte and other dealers in the Bay Area," said Roger Bramble, a service department manager, who along with about 50 other employees will be out of a job when the remaining servicing and repair jobs are done.

From what we can gather, the dealership, Ford's only one in San Francisco after S&C Ford in the Castro closed in 2008, had been on the block for some time. Ford had taken control of the dealership three years ago, when the original franchisee handed back the keys.

The owner of Journey Ford Lincoln in Novato, Ali Omoomy, had been looking to take it over, but walked away a couple of months ago, I was told. Other interested buyers subsequently faded away, prompting Ford finally to cut bait.

Referring to the "very tough decision" to close the dealership, Ford Lincoln Mercury President Mel Turner, said, in a statement, "We are proud to have served the San Francisco community and will be focusing over the coming weeks on helping employees through this transition and ensuring our current customer commitments are met."

Omoomy did not return calls for comment.

No domestics please, this is San Francisco!: The closing did not come as a surprise to Mike Hollywood, a sales manager at the former Ellis Brooks Chevrolet at Bush and Van Ness, which got out of the American new car business 2 1/2 years ago.

"People in San Francisco just weren't buying Cadillac Escalades. You can't even park them in the parking structures here," he said.

Neither, it seems, are they buying Ford Fusions in any quantity.

"It's a tough market. Imports have a much bigger share in San Francisco," said Dennis Fitzpatrick, owner of Concord Chevrolet and regional vice president of the California New Car Dealers Association. "When you can sell 100 imports a month as opposed to 25 domestic, and what with the rents and real estate, it's tough to make a U.S. car dealership pencil."

It's a different story a few blocks down on Van Ness Avenue and on South Van Ness Avenue, where Audis, Scions, Hondas, VWs and Mazdas are on display. BMW and Mercedes-Benz are close by. Or hop on a 38-Geary bus, nearby the Scion dealership on Van Ness Avenue, to get to the Toyota showroom on Geary Boulevard.

"San Francisco is not loyal to anything domestic; its allegiance is to anything but domestic," Fitzpatrick said. (Oof!)

-- The seven-story, 195,000-square-foot Ellis Brooks Chevrolet, by the way, is being transformed into a flagship Nissan/Infiniti dealership and "will represent one of the largest automobile retailing locations in the United States," according to Nissan North America.

"We believe the facility will help us grow sales across the region and strengthen our competitive position relative to other automakers such as Honda and Toyota," Paula Angelo, a Nissan spokeswoman, told me in March.

amulford

That is just sad. This country is slowly sliding downward from it's former glorious self...

madmax

amulford wrote: »

That is just sad. This country is slowly sliding downward from it's former glorious self...

Slowly? Unless I'm seeing it wrong we are running toward the cliffs with excitement of the fall!

byfthalone

bet the board of supervisors are tickled pink that those greedy American companies are no longer within the "diverse" confines of San Francisco!!!

Melz709

Yes, we are running towards the cliffs madmax...soaked I'm foreign oil.

Polkie2009

Yep, the unions had it good, they rode the bisquit wheels right off of the gravy train. straight over the cliff.

sucks2beme

Not just the unions, the bloated idle management.
Other than a couple of cars(Mustang, Corvette)
they had no interest in improving anything.
Sell big honking SUVs and extended trucks.
Don't innovate. Don't fix design flaws. Don't re-vamp
manufacturing methods. I mention those two cars,
since they are prime examples of someone knowing
their target market and have tweaked their cars for
to no end. The new Mustangs are far better than
the cars of a couple of years ago.
I'd put up the new Mustang with the best sports cars made
anywhere. Dollar for dollar, a great value. There's better,
but there's a price. And a lot of those euro cars have even worse
labor problems than we do, and more than a few expensive
whoopsies in design that break often and cost $$$$.
And not all Japanese cars are peaches and cream, either.
Toyota and Honda are top notch, but there are others
that are crap, too. There are some newer lines from GM and Ford
in the small car market that have made huge gains in value
and quality. But, too little, too late.
You could kill every union in the US auto industry, and yes they'd save
some production costs. But all the crap that pisses me off about
many of the car lines would still be the same. And I'm sure
the managers would soak up the savings with new bonuses.

obieone

They hate this country so much, they're willing to throw their comrades in the UAW under the bus.
Makes perfect sense.