GENERAL Motors (GM) has appointed privately-owned Alpine Motors as the second Chevrolet dealer here, in an aggressive bid to improve sales of the mass-market marque.

GM is hoping to more than double its sales of 2,000 units last year, when it secured the No.10 spot, in three to five years.

Mr Harold Koh, managing director of GM Overseas Distribution, said Chevy, as the car is popularly known, has the potential to be among the top five bestsellers here in 'three to five years'.

The new appointment, however, has irked Starsauto, the existing Chevy dealer. Starsauto is part of Wearnes International, which is largely owned by listed WBL Corp.

It has two Chevy facilities, in Kampong Ubi and Leng Kee Road. It secured the marque two years ago, soon after GM took over Korean manufacturer Daewoo and rebadged its cars Chevrolet for some markets.

Mr Royston Tan, Wearnes managing director (automotive & equipment), said having another Chevy dealer in Singapore is a 'wrong move'.

'If you have one dealer selling five cars, it doesn't mean that when you have two dealers, you'll sell 10,' he said.

He accepts that GM 'has every right to do what it did' because the dealership agreement was never exclusive. 'But we were surprised that it did it so quickly,' he added. 'We only had 11/2 years to build up the brand.'

Mr Koh, however, said 'Singapore is big enough to have two dealers'.

'It does not mean we're not happy with Starsauto'.

The last time a manufacturer appointed two dealers for one brand was in the early-1990s when GM picked two companies to represent Opel.

Mr Koh said GM had no plans to appoint second dealers for its other brands like Saab and Opel.

Alpine started selling Chevys from two showrooms last week. One is in Bukit Timah, the other in Boon Lay.

It has also opened a service workshop in Sin Ming and a crash repair shop in Kaki Bukit.

'Excluding the crash repair centre, we're investing around $100,000 a year in the business,' said Alpine managing director Albert Pang.

'We aim to sell 100 cars a month,' he said.

Mr Pang reckons Alpine's experience as a finance dealer for banks as well as its dealings with motor insurers will give it an edge when packaging deals to customers.

This article first appeared in ST on April 07, 2006