End of an era for Ford in SL?

With the bankruptcy of Holzhauer auto dealerships in Storm Lake and Cherokee, it seems unlikely that the Ford brand will reappear in The City Beautiful, ending more than a century of Blue Oval sales going back to the days of the Model T.

A sheriff’s sale has been set for April 23 for the Holzhauer real estate in Cherokee, and a sale of the  Storm Lake property on North Lake Avenue will be held later to help satisfy the debts Holzhauer accumulated in unpaid bank loans. The Storm Lake Ford store is valued at $2.3 million. The Cherokee GM location is assessed at $830,000 while the Ford property across highway 59 is assessed at $988,000.

As Tom Cullen disclosed in the Times Pilot last month, it is unlikely that new Ford, GM or Chrysler vehicles will ever be sold again in Cherokee.

Holzhauer sold all of Detroit’s Big Three brands, and if none of the automakers elects to allow a new franchisee, then car buyers will have to go to Le Mars for a Ford or Storm Lake for a Chevy or Chrysler. It’s hard to imagine a county seat town in Iowa where you can’t buy a new pickup truck.

A similar fate is likely for Ford buyers in Storm Lake, who will probably have to turn to Ford dealers in Spencer, Pocahontas, Odebolt or farther if they want an F-150 pickup truck. Or Edwards will be happy to sell them a Chevy or Ram here.

Following the financial crisis of 2008 that bankrupted the American auto industry, the big Detroit automakers started weeding out smaller dealers in favor of larger and more profitable operations. Because of strong franchise laws in most states like Iowa, it’s hard for an automaker to yank an existing dealer’s right to sell. But when a dealer defaults, the automaker has the opportunity to get its way. That seems to be the situation with Holzhauer. Automakers don’t want to devote resources to small operations in sparsely populated areas like western Iowa.

Once upon a time just about every town across America had a Ford or Chevy dealer, along with a lot of other brands like DeSoto, Studebaker and Packard. Many small towns around Buena Vista County had new car dealerships, including Newell, Sioux Rapids, Schaller, Early and Fonda. When I was a kid in the 1960s I remember five new car dealers in Storm Lake: Mammen (Ford), Peterson (Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Dodge), Fitzpatrick (Chevrolet, Buick), Schuelke (Chrysler, Plymouth) and Storm Lake Import Motors (Volkswagen).

Until the 1950s all of Storm Lake’s car dealers were downtown. Mammen was on West Fifth Street, in what is now the Buena Vista County Historical Museum. Across the street was Schuelke, Storm Lake’s oldest car dealership. Peterson originally was in the first block of West Railroad Street, and Dlugosch, the Chevy dealer, was in the building at East Sixth and Erie where Valentina’s is now, across from City Hall. Chevrolet left downtown in July 1959 when Tom Fitzpatrick opened his new Chevy/Buick showroom in a farm field on North Lake Avenue.

Thirty or so years ago there was an attempt to bring the Toyota line to town, but the growing Japanese automaker declined, protecting its dealers in Fort Dodge, Carroll, Spirit Lake and Sioux City.

After 2008 General Motors decided to make Cadillac an even more exclusive brand and dropped the number of dealers in Iowa, including Storm Lake, by two-thirds to six. Once upon a time, when Carl Peterson was in his prime, you could see lots of Cadillacs running around BV County. Not anymore, since you can no longer buy a Caddy in Storm Lake or anywhere within 120 miles. Now the closest dealer is Council Bluffs. GM is doing the same with Buick. In the past year it has closed half of its dealers nationwide, including Storm Lake, where Buicks were once as popular as Chevrolets.

Perhaps an importer like Subaru or Kia would be interested in taking over the Holzhauer facilities, but that’s unlikely, considering the new tariffs imposed on vehicles built outside the U.S.