Pat Clark auto dealership closing its doors

One of the city’s oldest car dealers said Friday it would close its doors immediately.

Officials of Pat Clark Auto Showcase, once a General Motors dealer and more recently a seller of used cars, said in a statement that the 67-year-old dealership’s sales have “diminished to nearly nothing,” and keeping up staffing levels has “become impossible.”

David Pyles, the dealership’s general manager, said the company has been operating with a “skeleton crew.”

Pat Clark’s statement didn’t say how many employees or how much unsold inventory the dealer had, and a company spokesman didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

The company said the recession, trouble for the country’s Big Three automakers and high unemployment in Las Vegas have totaled the local car-sales sector. Dealers that sold hundreds of cars a month in better times now see single-digit sales.

“We have so many customers and friends in the Las Vegas Valley that it really was a difficult decision for us,” Pyles stated. “We wanted to make sure our customers were going to be taken care of, that they were going to be treated right.”

Pyles said the dealer would finish all pending service work on cars in the company’s shop.

“We don’t want to leave any loose ends,” he said. “We began as a quality organization nearly seven decades ago and we intend to finish the same way we started.”

Pat Clark Sr. started the dealership, which continued under Pat Clark Jr. The company said it sold tens of thousands of cars to generations of local drivers.

Pat Clark will continue to sell scooters and motorcycles from its store at 2495 E. Sahara Ave.

Pat Clark is one of a multitude of car dealers in recent weeks to close or to announce plans to close.

Big Three carmaker Chrysler said May 14 that it would terminate franchise agreements with four local car dealers, including Integrity Chrysler, United Dodge and United Chrysler Jeep. Another dealer, Jim Marsh Chrysler Jeep, will lose its Chrysler franchise but continue to sell nameplates including Kia, Mitsubishi and Suzuki.

Integrity executives said their dealership had 118 workers.

And in September, the nationwide Bill Heard operation, which included local dealers Bill Heard Chevrolet and Vista Chevrolet, closed, putting at least 100 people out of work.

The 75-employee Desert Dodge, which was part of AutoNation, closed in February, and in April, Centennial Hyundai closed after just six months in operation. The Hyundai dealer’s parent company, Superstore Auto Group, said it would move 90 percent of the dealership’s 60-person work force to sister stores.

The dealership carnage has grown enough to warrant special mention in analysis accompanying the state’s most recent unemployment numbers.

Economists with the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation said on May 22 that dealership closures would likely continue to contribute “significantly” to rising unemployment through the remainder of 2009.

Dealers had shed 550 jobs through the third quarter of 2008, the latest period with available statistics.

The news isn’t all bad, though. The city has at least one new dealer: Ed Bozarth Nevada #1 Chevrolet, which opened at the old Vista offices with 80 employees in December.

Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.