Top of their game

20131021-NEWS--0001-NAT-CCI-AN_--
10/18/2013
5:53 PM
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OCTOBER 21, 2013
The redesigned Chevrolet Silverado:
Good reviews, but a price disadvantage
Price gap
riles GM
dealers
Top of their game
They are motivators, leaders and innovators. Automotive News
celebrates this year’s 100 Best Dealerships To Work For
INSIDE
■ A photo gallery from the conference and
award ceremony | PAGE 27 |
SPECIAL SECTION
BEGINS AFTER PAGE 18
■ At Friendship Chrysler-JeepDodge-Ram of Bristol, this
year’s No. 1 store, employees
support each other in times of
need | PAGE B3 |
■ The complete ranking of the 100 Best
Dealerships To Work For | PAGE B6 |
■ Rankings by dealership size | PAGE B32 |
■ Profiles and photos of each Best Dealership
| PAGES B38 - B66 |
>
Watch the video reports of the Best
Dealerships at autonews.com/
bestvideos2013
PHOTOS BY JOE WILSSENS
Where are the 2013 Best Dealerships To Work For?
Check out the national spread in our interactive map
at autonews.com/bestdealershipsmap
Representing the top 10
Best Dealerships To Work
For, are, from left: Lynn
Freeman, AutoNation
Hyundai Mall of Georgia;
Andrew Guelcher, Ciocca
Honda (Pa.); Warren Zinn,
of Warren Henry Jaguar and
Warren Henry Infiniti (Fla.);
Tracy Gilliam, Star DodgeChrysler-Jeep-Ram (Texas);
Tom Hall, Friendship
Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram of
Bristol (Tenn.); Lisa
Copeland, Fiat of Austin
(Texas); Steve Chapman,
AutoNation Honda South
Corpus Christi (Texas); Sean
Van Praet, Prime Hyundai
(Maine); Larry Zinn, Warren
Henry Volvo (Fla.)
Manheim COO Janet Barnard
and Automotive News Editorin-Chief Keith Crain, right,
with Tom Hall, general
manager of Friendship
Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram of
Bristol, the No. 1 dealership
New pickups must
go up against heavily
discounted rivals
Mike Colias
[email protected]
DETROIT — General Motors’ game plan
for the most important vehicle launch since
its 2009 bankruptcy amounted to producing
a knockout next-generation pickup that
would command top dollar.
Critical acclaim for the redesigned 2014
Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra suggests
that GM nailed the first part of that strategy.
But as the new trucks hit the heart of their
launch cycle, the pricing part appears to be
running up against cold market realities.
Many Chevy and GMC dealers say sales of
the 2014 pickups have been disappointing
since the June launch, stymied by stiff price
competition from heavily discounted Fords
and Rams.
Silverados are “selling very poorly” at
Dimmitt Chevrolet in Clearwater, Fla., General Manager Sam Pilato says. The dealership, which typically sells 10 to 25 of the fullsized pickups a month, didn’t notch its first
Silverado sale this month until Oct. 16.
W. Carroll Smith, president of Monument
Chevrolet in Pasadena, Texas, says his supsee PRICES, Page 32
BOB KING’S FINAL BATTLE
UAW uses multifront push to organize imports
Nick Bunkley
[email protected]
DETROIT — Soon after assuming the presidency of a union that had lost nearly 40 percent of its members under his predecessor,
Bob King spoke bluntly about the need to
bring workers at the foreign-owned auto
plants dotting the American South into the
UAW’s fold.
“If we don’t organize these transnationals,
I don’t think there’s a long-term future for
the UAW — I really don’t,” King said in January 2011. When he set a goal of organizing at
least one Southern plant by that year’s end,
many outsiders saw it as wishful thinking.
And as King’s term winds down — at 67, he’s
too old to run in June’s election under union
rules — the UAW has yet to achieve a victory.
But the union’s claim last month that it had
won over a majority of workers at the 2-year-
old Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga and
support from within VW for establishing a
German-style works council at the plant
helped swing its mission from improbable to
promising.
Through a strategy of coalescing global
unions, civil rights activists and political figures, King has engineered a broad push into
a decidedly hostile corner of the country. In
addition to Chattanooga, the UAW is focussee KING, Page 30
UAW President Bob King has said the UAW’s
future depends on organizing “transnationals.”
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