It's the end of the road for some Olds dealers

SHELBYVILLE, Ky. -- The manicured green pastures and white fence posts stretch over the gentle hills of Kentucky's horse country all the way to Donny Ethington's tidy car dealership with its fleet of new Aleros, Auroras and Intrigues.

It's not exactly bustling these days on the showroom floor. Ethington manages to sell only one new car about every two weeks.

The problem is largely the brand. Ethington is selling the last of the Oldsmobiles, the 105-year-old nameplate that General Motors Corp. has put on death row after an unsuccessful effort to make it a viable alternative to imports such as Honda and Volvo.

"We don't do a lot of volume out here," Ethington said.

Used to be the innovator

It wasn't always that way. For decades, Olds was known for innovative cars, such as the 1949 Rocket 88 that inspired a blues song. But more recently, such models as the Omega and the Achieva became odes to mediocrity.

Oldsmobile is the most visible casualty yet in the intensifying 30-year battle waged against American brands by imports. While the Olds brand fades out and sales drop through the floor, dealers such as Ethington are left stranded, faced with one of the toughest selling jobs in the world.

Ethington represents the antithesis of the stereotypical car dealer -- the sweet-talking, crafty and deal-hungry salesman. Ethington is a soft-spoken Southern gentleman, with wavy gray hair and a brown vest, something of a father figure to his 30 or so employees.

The atmosphere at the dealership more resembles a living room than a high-pressure sales office. Two teenage girls, Ethington's nieces, are in a nonstop gabfest as they answer phones, chatter with friends and keep a buzz going. A friend stops in to smoke a cigarette. Salesmen shuffle around in the background, waiting -- and waiting -- for a prospect.

"It's tough," Ethington said in his windowless office above the showroom, worried about his extended family supported by the Olds dealership in Shelbyville, population 10,085. Across the United States, sales of Oldsmobile's current models fell 36 percent over the first five months of the year.

No more after 2004

The last Olds is due to roll off the assembly line sometime in 2004. As the brand travels down the highway to oblivion, the days have grown darker at Ethington Oldsmobile, where Olds is the only new-car brand the dealership carries. Resale prices of five models have fallen significantly.

"I've never seen them so cheap," Ethington said.

It's not even worth it to Ethington to spend money on advertising Olds; he relies on the national ads that GM puts out.

With the economic crunch, things were difficult anyway. But GM's decision in December 2000 to kill the Oldsmobile division pulled the livelihood out from under dozens of new-car dealers who will have no other brands to sell, or just one other brand that would have difficulty sustaining a business on its own.

Other Olds dealers are in the same boat.

"How can I make up the volume? That's a prime question," said Alan Starling, an Oldsmobile-Chevrolet dealer in St. Cloud, Fla. "Work with Chevy and used cars, I guess."