Originally Posted By: HemiHawk
Regular auto dealers are a little mafia like as well haha. "Can't setup a new dealer within X miles of my dealer". "we own this town".
Yep - In the Bay Area, AutoNation/Hendrick/Sonic dominate the Honda market, at one point in time good ol' Rick Hendrick owned two dealerships within 15 miles of each other until he got into hot water(they still own those two dealerships, one of them is under a shell company). Sonic owns an Lexus, Acura and yes a Honda dealership within feet of each other at the same auto mall.
One of the local Honda dealers had their building sold for luxury condos and they couldn't relocate to the south or north side of town - the mentioned dealerships pressured corporate to keep then in that 1 mile part of Berkeley, the local NIMBYs shut down their move to a vacant Any Mountain store which would have made Honda happy and Hendrick/PSC quiet.