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Car Dealerships Watch Big 3 Bailout Talks Closely

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Dec 9, 2008 9:32 pm US/Eastern

Car Dealerships Watch Big 3 Bailout Talks Closely

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ― On the lots of Pittsburgh area car dealerships, just like on the assembly lines of Detroit, they are hanging on every word of the Washington auto rescue debate.

In this struggle for an industry's economic survival, people coast to coast and many of your neighbors are vital parts of the global assembly lines of the Big 3.  They are desperate for some sign of proof their jobs are the American car manufacturers are here for the long run.

In short, they need a rescue.

"Well, it keeps us in business No. 1, but right now we need to increase the consumer confidence, that's what is holding the whole thing back right now there are good deals right now, we can get people financed and people just need to know it," Mick Wolcott, of the Pittsburgh Automobile Dealers Association, said.

The website, Engine of Democracy, which is a consortium of people whose jobs have an auto industry connection, says what happens with the Big 3 will impact more than 235,000 people in our state.

Many of them are at PPG, Bayer and other industries that supply the car manufacturers and of course at Pittsburgh area car dealers.

"And I expect to see probably by February I would guess probably half a dozen will be gone," Wolcott said.

But for now, the car dealers sit holding millions of dollars of inventory, waiting for a sign from DC and trying to steady nerves of their employees.

"I try to have a meeting once a month with them and bring them up to date on what's going on and reassure them that I'm doing everything I can to keep us here," Wolcott said.

Wolcott says his Chrysler Jeep dealership on McKnight Road and its peers need congressional pressure on banks.

He says the banks are holding on to the bailout they received instead of lending it out and congress needs to get the banks to loosen the purse strings and get the money flowing again. 

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.