President, Lee Auto Malls
President of Lee Auto Malls, which has 11 car dealerships in Southern Maine
PROFILE
Adam Lee
Guest
FROM Adam Lee
To the Point
As Truck and SUV Sales Plunge, Detroit Goes for Small Urban cowboys in pickups and SUV's are a thing of the past. More and more customers don't even talk about power any more. Ford, Chrysler and General Motors were not ready for four-dollar gasoline, and June was another disaster for an industry that helped make America great, with sales of new cars and trucks that plunged to a ten-year low. GM dropped 18%; Ford 28% and Chrysler 36%. Toyota took a 21% hit, but Honda rose by 1.1 and Kia , owned by Hyundai of South Korea, went up by 7.6. We talk with a Chrysler/Jeep dealer who says the Big Three are their own worst enemy. Can they re-tool in time? Can they figure out how to make money on small cars with high mileage before they're swamped by foreign companies who saw the light a long time ago?
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