Chrysler purged a massive number of its North American showrooms earlier this year as part of a company-wide restructuring effort, and now up to 100 additional dealers might be forced to close their doors if they can’t reach financing deals with GMAC Financial Services.
Chrysler is down to around 2,360 dealerships, about 1,500 of which sought showroom and floorplan financing from GMAC when the company took over from Chrysler Financial as the automaker’s official lender. The rest of the surviving dealerships worked out their financing with other parties.
Yet more than 80 of the dealers have since found their applications rejected by GMAC. According to reports, about 60 more dealers are still under consideration and scrutiny by GMAC.
More than 10 percent of the rejected dealers have been able to find outside financing, according to Chrysler spokeswoman Kathy Graham.
“We are optimistic that none of them are going to have to close,” Graham told reporters from Reuters.
