TIFTON — Owners of four area Chrysler dealerships were relieved Thursday to learn that their businesses were not included in the 13 Georgia dealerships set to close after Chrysler LLC filed bankruptcy Thursday.

Chrysler LLC stated in its court filing that its network of dealerships is antiquated and has too many stores competing with each other. The company, in a motion filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York, said many of the dealers’ sales are too low. Just over 50 percent of the dealers account for about 90 percent of the company’s U.S. sales, the motion said. The company plants to eliminate 789 of the U.S.’s 3,200 dealerships.

Kirby Jones of Tifton’s Jones Chrysler Plymouth Dodge said Thursday that “it is a relief to get it off my shoulders” when asked how he felt about being told his dealership wasn’t on the chopping block.

“I would have done something else,” Jones said. “Wherever God led me.”

The Tifton dealership employs between 18 and 20 people.

Jones’ father, Donald, began the business that now operates on U.S. Highway 82 W. in 1969 as a Volkswagen dealership. Kirby Jones’ cousin, Scott Jones and his brother, Kyle Jones, operate Quality Chrysler Dodge Jeep in Fitzgerald. Scott Jones said he has been dealing with the possibility that the dealership could close for some time.

“Yesterday, we got the word that we would be receiving a letter today UPS,” Jones said Thursday. “We were anticipating the letter and we didn’t know whether we would be here or gone.”

The Fitzgerald dealership will celebrate 19 years of business in June and employs 14 people. Scott Jones’s father and Donald Jones’ brother, Hulen, 74, also worked in the car business for years. Scott Jones said his father had seen more economic ups and downs than him.

“He has been through a couple of recessions but he told me that he’s never seen anything like this,” Jones said.

Nashville’s Martin Motors has been operating at 709 S. Davis St. since the 60s and was incorporated in 1974. A spokesperson that expressed relieve that the dealership, which employs 16 people, would continue to operate.

Kim Bennett, vice president of Coffee Chrysler Dodge Jeep on South Peterson Street in Douglas, said employees at that dealership “felt very secure that we would not be on the list.”

“The support of the community is the reason,” Bennett said. “The community has been dedicated to us and we are really pleased with the news.”

Chrysler included on its list of dealerships set to close in Georgia as those in August, Claxton, Clayton, Cleveland, Dalton, Decatur, Jackson, Jasper, Milledgeville, two in Newnan, Savannah and Thomaston.

Chrysler dealerships aren’t the only ones scheduled to get bad news this week. General Motors Corp. says it is notifying 1,100 dealers that it will not renew their franchise agreements when they expire at the end of September of 2010.

In its motion, Chrysler said it has many dealerships that sell one or two of its brands, with Chrysler-Jeep dealerships competing against Dodge dealers as well as other automakers’ stores across the county.

“In addition, as suburbs grew and the modern interstate system continued to evolve, long-standing dealerships no longer were in the best or growing locations,” the company said in its filing. “Many rural locations also served a diminishing population of potential consumers. Some dealership facilities became outdated. Other locations faced declining traffic count and declining populations.”

Chrysler has received $4 billion in federal loans and has been operating in bankruptcy protection since April 30. Its sales this year are down 46 percent compared with the first four months of last year and it reported a $16.8 billion net loss for 2008.



To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.