Asian automakers make moves to recruit minority dealership owners.

Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. and Honda North America Inc. have signaled they may make overtures in the future toward recruiting more minority dealership owners.

Both Torrance-based sales divisions of the Asian automakers sent representatives to portions of the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers convention early last month in Washington, D.C. -- the first time any major car importer had a presence at the annual meeting, according to the trade publication Automotive News. Honda officials also sponsored a cocktail party at the start of the three-day convention.

While spokesmen from both Honda and Toyota say they have plans to regularly send representatives to the convention and are eager to recruit more minorities as dealers, neither company has plans to establish a program to aid recruitment.

Officials at NAMAD, which is based in Washington, D.C., did not return phone calls.

Currently, Toyota and Honda minority dealership owners total in the low single digits percentwise. Of the 1,191 Toyota dealerships in the U.S., 42, or 3.5 percent, are minority owned. There are 14 African-American-owned dealerships, 13 Latino-owned eight Asian-owned and seven Native American-owned.

Low numbers

At Lexus, Toyota's luxury car division, three out of 172 dealerships are owned by minorities, with single African-American, Asian and Latino owners.

The Virginia-based National Automobile Dealers Association, the industry's major trade group, does not keep statistics on minority-owned dealerships, according to Tom Webb, its chief economist.

"We are trying to increase our minority dealer count," said Jeremy Barnes, a Toyota spokesman. Representatives at Toyota's regional offices are encouraged to seek minority ownership candidates whenever a new dealership, called a point, is to be opened, or an existing point is up for sales, he said.

While financial incentives are offered by Toyota's motor credit division for entrepreneurs to help start new points, there are no specific programs addressed to minorities, Barnes said.

"We don't have plans to single minorities out for special assistance," he said.

At Honda, 4.2 percent of its 1,004 Honda dealers and 284 Acura dealers are minority owned. Spokesman Mike Spencer could not provide a further breakdown.

"We are concerned about the number of minority dealers," he said. "It makes sense to have more."

Like Toyota, Honda's regional executives are encouraged to seek minority applicants whenever a point is created or is up for sale, but there are no plans to aid minorities directly.

Jesse Snyder, an analyst with Autofacts Inc., a Pennsylvania-based industry consultant, said that the Asian automakers have been more cognizant of recruiting minorities in recent years, but "it's not a front-burner issue."

"I do see more activism. I think that as import brands, particularly Asian brands, have their knowledge of the U.S. market grow, and they rotate more of their own nationals through the U.S. offices, they get more sensitive to the issue," Snyder said.

Yen concern has priority

"But it perhaps has less than a sense of urgency among Japanese brands right now than dealing with the problems of yen appreciation (which makes Japanese models imported into the U.S. more expensive) and a swing of the market share back to domestics," Snyder said.

He noted that "The Big 3" -- General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp. -- have had minority recruitment programs for years, primarily because they have more and older dealerships in the inner-city parts of major metropolitan areas, where most minority-owned dealerships are situated.

In comparison, foreign automakers tend to have newer dealerships in suburban areas, which are not as attractive to minority owners. Minority customers are also more likely to purchase American cars, he added.

"One other factor in this is simply finding minority businessmen with the capital and experience necessary, since starting a dealership has gotten a lot more rigorous in recent years," Snyder said.

While he said he believes there are many more minority entrepreneurs with the necessary capital -- up to $4 million to start a dealership -- than in the past, their founding fortunes have tended to have been earned in unrelated industries.