It’s not “officially official” yet, but it appears a letter is soon going to be coming down the pike notifying Redwood Falls GM dealer Scott-Preusse, it is going to retain its GM franchise.
Scott Preusse, third generation owner of Scott-Preusse, Inc., was recently notified he and 20 out of 30 other GM dealers in Minnesota would be back in business.
In total, 661 dealerships across the U.S. are being reinstated. The news of reinstatement came as a very pleasant surprise for Preusse who worked hard to get it back through correspondence, telephone calls and a couple of trips to Washington, D.C.
“It’s kind of a funny story,” said Preusse. “My wife and I were going to Fargo Friday to visit our kids. I got a call on my car phone from Jeanne (Lim-oges) who said she just got a press release stating that over 550 dealers would be reinstated by a phone call followed by a letter.”
It wasn’t but a few minutes later Preusse got a call from his GM zone manager who informed him he had good news.
Preusse asked him if he remembered him.
“How could I forget you after the 400 phone calls that you made to me over the past eight months,” was his response.
“Needless to say, we went wild in the car,” said Preusse.
When Preusse asked why he would be reinstated, he was told by his zone manager GM made a mistake and they wanted Scott-Preusse back because they needed his help.
Apologies are nice.
It was back in early May 2009 when he and 2,400 GM dealers re-ceived an unsigned letter delivered by Fed-Ex informing him he would lose his GM franchise.
Coupled with that was the bad news Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge would also be dropped from his line.
“Chrysler Corpor-ation really hasn’t loosened up at all like GM has,” said Preusse. “If they do, yes, we will (continue selling that line of vehicles).”
That was bad news, not only for Preusse and his 24 employees, but for the entire community.
His grandfather started the business here in 1955, and they have gained a reputation as being a vital and giving part of the community – not to mention that during that time span the dealership has sold 38,507 vehicles and pumped more than $1 million in taxes and wages into the community each year.
Preusse admitted the past months have been harder on his business, but he was able to get new vehicles to sell through the cooperation of four or five neighboring GM dealerships.
His used car business also helped keep him afloat.
Preusse also praised the community for the letters of support written in his behalf.
He said that’s what did it.
“Every cloud has a silver lining. There’s a certain amount of good that came out of all this hard time for us,” said Preusse, “and that is that we realized how important and loyal and true our customers are, and the town is and the businesses and our employees – we didn’t lose one employee.
“There isn’t anywhere in the world that I’d rather be than right here because of the people in this area.”
