I do not see how the existing BMW dealers could protest the sales of MG's at
the old MG dealerships as long as the cars still bear the MG name and not the
BMW name. On the other hand, BMW may not want to have two separate networks
of dealerships to have to deal with. It seems to me that the original
dealerships contracts
could probably be broken rather easily by a company with the resources that
BMW has.
I would also be curious how many of those old MG dealerships have since
signed exclusive
deals with other manufacturers?
As for the emissions equipment. It boggles my mind that, a company would
produce a
car that has historically sold best in the United States and design it in
such a way that it
could not easily be exported to the U.S. IMHO someone really dropped the
ball on that one.
If an even semi-competent marketing guy looked at the sales figures of the
A's and B's I
would think he would find that releasing the cars in the U.S. and not in
Europe would look
like a better plan than the other way around?? Even considering the
current U.S. safety and
pollution laws.
I guess I just don't understand.
-JW
At 05:25 PM 9/9/99 -0400, you wrote:
>
>
>
>> There have been a number of reasons bated around, not the least of which
>> have to do with Federal emissions and safety stuff. But the most popular
>> seems to be the lack of a dealer network! Of course I don't buy it
>because
>> if there was really a desire to sell the car here dealers could be lined
>up.
>
>Perhaps the problem is with the current dealers who used to have the MG
>franchise back in '80. Yep, many of them are still around. If they didn't
>offer the franchise to those, they may be in for some lawsuits, on the other
>hand if they do offer the franchise to those old dealers, what are the
>current BMW dealers going to say? I'll sue. Could be a no win situation,
>and combine that with the safety/emissions issue and it just may not be
>financially feasible.
>
>My $.02
>
>Gordie Bird
>'62 MGA
>'86 4kcsq
>
>
John Walker
john@rmartin.net
drone@d23.com
============
~= Early 1974 MGB =~
============
In Progress :)
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