While the consumer may benefit because of a wider selection of new and used cars, he or she probably won’t pay less for automobiles because of the increased competition. Scheithauer also doesn’t think he will be the last auto dealer to see the possibilities of Route 309. Somebody looking for a Dodge may decide to go next door and look for a Chevy,” he says. “When everybody else is out there, it benefits everyone. By next fall, Scheithauer expects tohave a 17-acre Chevrolet dealership, including an eight-car showroom and a 20-bay service garage, in operation along the highway. We’ve got to be a better dealership because the next guy is right beside us,” he says. “It can’t do anything but help our business. According to Sands, automobile dealers welcome a competitive marketplace. He says the added competition will be good for his business. Quakertown has been good to Dodges, Chryslers and Plymouths,” he says. We came in when Chrysler was getting back on its feet. The timing was perfect, Harold Sands says. The four Sands brothers – Harold, Terry, Glen and Stuart – opened their Quakertown dealerships at about the time Chrysler was returning to a competitive position in the marketplace. Sands Brothers has for years owned Red Hill Ford in the nearby Upper Perkiomen Valley, and decided to locate its Dodge and Chrysler-Plymouth dealerships on the highway in 1984. Harold Sands, president of two nearly side-by-side dealerships on the southbound side of the highway, says Sands Brothers moved there because the traffic flow of the highway was inviting.

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