Neal Rubin

Amidst chaos, a believer in the future of the new GM

Of course Sam Slaughter IV feels for the auto dealers. He is one. But he can't help wondering: Where the heck was Congress before?

Slaughter sells Buicks, Pontiacs and GMC trucks, and Pontiac is going away. A lot of the people who want cars don't have jobs, and a fair number of the people who have jobs can't get loans.

The guy who used to turn in his lease car and pick up another one the same day is saying gee, maybe he'll drive his mother-in-law's old Grand Marquis for awhile instead. Warranty work is drying up, which is a good thing, but still a factor Sellers Buick Pontiac GMC needs to deal with. And in the middle of all the auto industry chaos, Slaughter has opened seven figures' worth of expanded showroom in Farmington Hills, complete with a café.

So yes, he knows what the view is like from behind the big desk. And from his perspective, Congress has no business trying to legislate a few thousand car dealerships back into existence -- especially after it stood by while tens of thousands of blue- and white-collar workers were shown the door.

As part of their bankruptcies, Chrysler cut loose 789 dealerships and GM is phasing out 1,300, giving them $600 million in assistance along the way. Congress is working on a bill that would keep the dealerships open, though how you do that with a Dodge store that's already dumped its inventory and laid off its employees is unclear.

"If this ends up with the Chrysler dealers being compensated," Slaughter says, that's a good thing. But the fact is, he'll tell you, some dealerships need to go, and the reality doesn't change just because 50 lost jobs in farm country are more real to some congressmen than 50,000 lost jobs in Detroit.

Not every dealership needs a Picasso Express where the customer who wants an oil change on his lunch hour can have a salad or a sandwich while he waits. But if someone is selling 20 Chevrolets a month down the road from a dealer selling 200 Toyotas, Slaughter contends, he can't provide the retail experience that helps bring GM back.

Dreaming of being a dealer

Slaughter's company motto is important enough to him that he wears it on his dress shirts: "Reputation is Everything." He felt like I tossed a rock at his, which is why he invited me in for a tour.

A brusque salesman at his store essentially chased me away a few weeks ago, and I wrote about it, on the theory that we're all in the car business now and we can't afford to lose customers. I didn't mention the dealership, but there's only one place in Farmington Hills selling Buicks.

Slaughter felt as though I'd maligned his business based on one interaction with a guy who might just have been having a bad day, or for that matter a bad two minutes. If I'd asked for him or a manager, he says, I'd have received what any unhappy customer there gets: Attention, an apology, and whatever else it might take to bring me back.

His name's not on the sign -- Bob Sellers founded the place -- but he's been the owner since 2006, and he's been preparing for the job since fourth grade. Sam Slaughter III was a Ford engineer, and his son had a massive collection of Matchbox toy cars. When Sam IV played with them, he'd call it "arranging the inventory."

Looking at a new GM

Now he runs the fourth-highest-volume Buick Pontiac GMC store in the country. He contends that GM largely let Pontiac starve, and the loss pains him -- after 20 years of driving demos, he actually bought a 410-horsepower, six-speed manual G8 GXP -- but long term, he accepts that he'll be better off with an invigorated line of Buicks.

Short-term, he's buying Pontiacs from other dealers and accelerating his used-car operation. To help replace the warranty work that's disappeared as the brands have grown more reliable, he's expanded into tires and performance tuning.

Tires are a low-profit item, he says, "like milk at a grocery store. But it gets you coming in."

So do more alluring cars, like the 2010 Buick LaCrosse that brought me through the door and should be on the lots any day. GM "can't continue to build vehicles they have to incentivize to sell," Slaughter says.

He's enthused about the LaCrosse, which auto critics already love. "If that's the new GM," he says, "I'm in."

Then he catches himself and laughs. "Of course," he says, "I am in."

nrubin@detnews.com (313) 222-1874