Thomas McCaslin might never know for sure why General Motors called two weeks ago to say his 80-year-old dealership in the heart of Nebraska cattle country wouldn't close after all.
He has a feeling that a hamburger cookout and an old-fashioned brand of political lobbying had something to do with it.
"There's no doubt in my mind" it helped, McCaslin said Thursday as about 200 residents gathered to celebrate the town's only GM dealership continuing to sell Chevrolets. "You have all these elected officials who make things happen because they depend on votes."
GM's reversal followed a massive letter-writing campaign and lobbying of elected officials that started with a cookout in the town square just days after Gateway Motors was told in May it would be among 1,300 in the country to close.
In some rural areas, GM dealerships once set to be casualties of the company's financial freefall find themselves part of its reformation after sending handwritten pleas and barbecue invites — including one that used GM's own "Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet" slogan.
GM says its change of heart on about 50 dealerships it called underperforming wasn't based on those kinds of factors or any political arm-twisting.
Instead, GM spokeswoman Susan Garontakos said, the company realized it erred when analyzing the finances of the dealerships and reconsidered the distances between some dealers. Closing Gateway Motors, for example, would have meant people had to drive 60 miles to the closest GM dealer.
Yeah, I guess it never occurred to anyone that they might want to analyze that before they announced the closings......
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