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GM notified 1,100 of its 6,000 dealerships nationwide Friday that it will terminate their contracts by October 2010 in a bid to improve its financial condition.
But because the automaker did not release a list of which stores will be closed, it wasn't clear exactly who survived Friday's cuts, the first step in GM's plan to eliminate as many as 2,000 dealerships in the coming months.
As of late Friday afternoon, officials at seven Lancaster County GM stores said they had not received notification that they will be closed.
Officials at three other dealerships could not be reached for comment, and a fourth dealership declined to comment.
But Dane Whitmoyer, of Whitmoyer Auto Group, said he believes all county dealers are strong enough to have survived the cuts.
"You have a lot of good GM dealers in this part of the world, and I haven't talked to anybody who's gotten a letter," he said.
"So far, so good for Lancaster County."
Whitmoyer Group, of Mount Joy, sells Chevrolet, Buick and Ford vehicles.
Owners and managers at six other Chevy, Buick, Pontiac, Cadillac, GMC and Saturn dealerships in Lancaster County said Friday they, too, had not received letters from GM.
The automaker notified dealers via Federal Express that their stores will be closing. GM didn't send letters to dealerships that survived the cuts.
Al Keim, president of Keim Chevrolet in Paradise, said he had not received a letter as of 4:15 p.m. Friday, but he wasn't yet ready to relax.
"When I put my head down on the pillow at midnight, I might relax a little, but not until then," he said.
Whitmoyer said he spent much of Friday trying to calm nervous employees and customers concerned the dealership might close.
"Every time the Fed-Ex truck pulled up, everybody was looking out the window to see if the letter arrived," he said. "I heard somebody say it's like waiting on a death sentence.
"So far, no news is good news," he said. "It's probably one hurdle out of three we'll have to clear in the next three months."
Jeff Kelly, general manager of Kelly Cadillac-Saab, said the first round of cuts was designed to eliminate "the worst of the worst" of GM's dealers.
The decision to close the stores was based on dealer capitalization, market penetration and customer satisfaction, he said.
"In all three of these areas, we exceeded the standards," he said of his Lancaster dealership.
Future cuts will be based on stricter criteria, and dealerships that consider themselves safe may find themselves out of business, Kelly said.
"I feel comfortable that we won't be one of them, but you never know," he said.
After the second round of cuts, GM is likely to push dealers to consolidate to eliminate more stores, Whitmoyer said.
"Until GM goes into and comes out of bankruptcy, none of us will sleep well at night," he said.
Keim said the timing of GM's cuts — on the anniversary of the day he started selling Chevys 23 years ago — was ironic.
"I cashed in everything I owned in the world to buy this place," he said Friday.
"Twenty-three years ago today I was granted my dealership, and today we're holding our breath to see if we survive."
E-mail: bwallace@lnpnews.com
