Grand Theft Auto

Grand Theft Auto – How Citizens Fought for the American Dream

May 14 and 15, 2009 – two days in which Chrysler and General Motors, with the help of the government, literally stole the life’s work from nearly 2,000 business owners.

Two years later, the history from the dealers’ perspective of those days are hitting the bookstores. And they are must reads for anyone associated with the automotive retail industry.

The first book out this year is by Alan Spitzer with his daughter Alison, whose account is appropriately titled, Grand Theft Auto – How Citizens Fought for the American Dream. Grand Theft Auto – How Citizens Fought for the American Dream.

The Spitzers’ book tells the inside story of how Jack Fitzgerald, Tamara Darvish and the Spitzers, along with numerous other dealers, put together the Committee to Restore Dealer Rights (CRDR) overcoming countless obstacles to try to save as many dealerships as possible. (Tamara Darvish just released her account, How Detroit and the Wall Street Car Czars Killed the American Dream).

The book begins as Spitzer is dropping his daughter off at school on May 14, 2009. It was a clear spring day with a lot of promise, yet would quickly become one of the worst days in Spitzer’s career. As his daughter is saying goodbye, he gets a phone call from someone at Chrysler telling him six of his dealerships were on the list to be closed.

The next day, he learned three of his General Motors dealerships were being closed.

The book’s pace at times is almost dizzying as the Spitzers puts the reader on the inside as dealers struggled and negotiated with White House, Congress, NADA and the automotive task force.

The account is impressive on many fronts. One, the book does not come across as a complaint session. Nor does it take pot shots at the people responsible for some the untruths that led to the dealership closures.

Instead, the Spitzers provides an objective and accurate portrayal of the events as they happened. It’s a classy read, but highly informative providing a blow by blow account of the how the situation played out. The book is incredible also because it outlines in great detail an insider’s view of how politics and legislation is conducted at the federal level. Not to overstate it, but the book may be one of the most informative political accounts ever written about the machinations inside our nation’s government.The Spitzers also have the facts to support their assertions. The book is well footnoted and includes government and manufacturer reports and documents in 13 appendices at the end of the book.

But it’s not a dry read. Despite the objective nature of the account, the desperation and hopelessness felt by the dealers who were losing family businesses is clearly seen throughout the book. Countless times when it appeared all was lost, Spitzer, Fitzgerald and Darvish continued fighting – even going against the Pentagon and President Obama.

In the end, it was a partial victory of sorts for dealers. Congress ended up passing a law requiring GM and Chrysler provide arbitration for all of their affected dealers. More GM than Chrysler dealers managed to reverse their closures.

If you’re involved at any level in the auto industry, or are just interested in politics and how our government works, this book is a great read.

The book is for sale on Amazon at this link: http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Theft-Auto-Alan-Spitzer/dp/1935547275

To read a preview, click here: Grand Theft Auto.

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Comment by NANCY SIMMONS on October 22, 2011 at 6:37pm

Comment by NANCY SIMMONS just now

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I was very involved in this nightmare of a debacle as a Comptroller for a winddown dealership. We received our letter in the second wave, which seemed to be a group of dealers who did not fall under the criteria, GM had submitted to congress, but dealers who did not always play under GM's rules, (sign up for voluntary programs, purchase marketing programs, take extra inventory, etc...). The bottom line is this travesty was executed with no real guidelines and some equate the selection process to throwing darts against a dart board. Some dealers lost franchises which had just been purchased by them months prior for millions of dollars blue sky, and GM approved! It just made no rhyme or reason! Thanks to Alan, Tammy and Jack for starting the group, Committee to Restore Dealers Rights and working so hard to get the law passed allowing dealers to at least have an opportunity to apply for reinstatement through arbitration. Both of these books need to be read!!!!

Comment by David Ruggles on October 19, 2011 at 7:27am: Thanks for posting this! While I just received Tammy's book, I hadn't been aware of this one. While I think it was essential to save and restructure the 2 Detroit automakers, the job certainly wasn't done perfectly. I have had extended conversations with Steve Rattner about the dealer terminations. Despite the SIGTARP report, which excoriated Team Auto on the issue of the terminations, he stubbornly insists that the legislation to reverse the terminations was "counter productive." Carl Woodward, noted CPA for dealers, participated in many of the "hearings" and brings first hand knowledge of the process to light. Frankly, the hearings were mostly a farce. In the case of GM, they had already figured out that their own terminations were counter productive and were reinstating dealers on their own, especially Cadillac dealers.

Rattner believes Steve Girsky "knows the auto business cold." He's a believer in the "Toyota high through put" model. None of these guys ever figured out that each dealer is a profit center for an OEM and that dealer profitability has little or nothing to do with OEM profits.

In 40 years I had NEVER heard a factory guy claim they could sell more cars or be more profitable by axing dealers. In fact, it was always a threat to put another dealer down the street if one did not improve one's sales results. Particularly egregious to the factory was a dealer who got rich selling the factories own out of service daily rental vehicles or off lease vehicles in lieu of new vehicles. But there I was watching Nardelli, Press, Wagner, and Mullaly testify before Congress, telling them what they thought they wanted to hear.

I DO think that a lot has been heaped on Rattner, who was merely carrying out orders. The President had been convinced by Girsky, through Larry Summers, that dealer terminations had to take place. The order to Rattner came down from summers. I am convinced Team Auto had nothing to do with choosing which dealers were terminated. Summers order included the line, "The public needs to see that all constituent parties took a haircut."

Rattner freely admits that his team included no car guys. They lacked a lot of knowledge that would have been helpful. Had car guys done the "restructuring" it might have looked a lot different. I suspect they might have gotten some things right and other things wrong. Its the old story of the perfect being the enemy of the good.

I should also point out that many of the terminations were franchises that existed under roof with other franchises. I'm not referring here to Saturn, Hummer, Pontiac, etc., but to franchises that were kept as ongoing divisions of a restructured OEM. That doesn't change the injustice of it all, but it should be mentioned that very few of the terminations left a piece of real estate with no franchise to operate out of it. Darvish and Spitzer would make the point that even one of these examples would have been too many. Frankly, I agree. The terminations were a horrible mistake in an otherwise fine restructuring.