Quality, plus pricing, add in an improving economy and you’ve got the formula for putting smiles on the faces of Rome’s new-car dealers.

Rome’s dealers are virtually unanimous in their belief that the quality of all vehicles being manufactured today is significantly improved over vehicles made a decade ago.

Bob Williams, owner of Bob Williams Dodge Chrysler Jeep said, “quality has improved, and they say it’s going to improve that much more in a couple of years.”

The dealers are also unanimous in the idea that while some folks are claiming the economy may have bottomed out, that people in Northwest Georgia have got to go back to work for the local automobile market to make a real comeback.

Mike Barron Sr., owner of the Heritage Honda, GMC and Nissan dealerships, says that he tracks the unemployment data on a monthly basis and says the 1 percent to 1.5 percent Floyd County stays above the state and national average makes “a substantial difference.”

There are other issues that the dealers face common ground on. The success of the Cash for Clunkers campaign, coupled with production cutbacks earlier this year, has created temporary inventory issues for most of them.

The good news is that lots are filling back up.

All of the dealers also share the belief that the domestic market is not as enthralled with hybrids as long as gas prices stay below $3. Kim Leggett, general manager at Courtesy Ford Lincoln Mercury, said, “The hybrid phenomena follows the gas process.”

Finally, all of the dealers say that in some sense, lending institutions are making more loans available than they were six to nine months ago. Applications are being looked at a lot more closely, and buyers are tending to have to come up with higher down payments than in recent years.

Riverside Toyota

General Manager Skip Welborn says his dealership is performing at about the same level as it was this time last year, but still well off of 2007 sales.

Welborn said that used car sales have been a bright spot, with sales as compared to new vehicles running about 50-50. Normally new car sales make up 60 percent of his figures.

“A lot of what we’re seeing in ’09 is people buying because they have to,” said Welborn. People are driving their older cars to the point where they need to move into a new vehicle and are not merely trading up three or four years into a vehicle.

Toyota was into the hybrid market a decade ago with its popular Prius, a car that Welborn said was created more for environmental reasons and lower emission, as opposed to fuel efficiency. He’s actually got a short waiting list for new Prius models. The Toyota Camry and Highlander are also available in hybrid models.

Welborn said Toyota continues to pour money into research and development, bringing new products to the market.

“The future looks great, we just need the economy to follow,” concluded Welborn.

Bob Williams Dodge-Chrysler-Jeep

Bob Williams says his North Rome dealership has held its own over the last year and a half.

Williams says he has gotten the same slice of the pie, referring to market share, but adds that the pie has gotten smaller.

Mini-vans and trucks continue to be the stalwart for Williams, but he said the new Dodge Charger and 300 models are doing a good job.

Williams says the Chrysler deal with Fiat should help the company some in the car market and that some models will be built off the Fiat platform in the next 18 months.

Williams said the state of Michigan is providing more than $4 million in incentives for Fiat to bring a new engine plant to Detroit, along with 600 to 700 jobs.

The veteran Dodge man is particularly happy to have four vehicles named to the safest vehicle list recently, they include the Jeep Patriot, the Dodge Journey and Avenger and the Chrysler Sebring.

Courtesy Ford-Lincoln-Mercury

Leggett, at the Ford store off U.S. 411 East, says affordability is coming into play in the new vehicle market today. A couple of Ford’s newer models are filling that bill nicely.

The Ford Fusion was recently named Car of the Year while the Focus has been setting sales records. Ford’s Fiesta is one of the top-selling cars in Europe.

Those are great developments for Ford, where according to Leggett, “all of the interest has been in trucks and SUVs for the past t10 years.”

Leggett says the Taurus is enjoying a revival and moving up a notch, almost to the point of climbing into the luxury sport sedan market.

Ford is also showing more interest in the hybrid market with the Fusion, Milan, Escape and Mariner joining the hybrid lineup.

Leggett said he’s been with Ford for “years and years and years, and our lineup in terms of style, fuel economy, safety and quality is better than it’s ever been at Ford Motor Co.”

Riverside Chevrolet-Cadillac-Hyundai

Owner John Welborn says his customers are looking for low payments on vehicles with higher fuel efficiency.

He says that for a long time, there has been a perception that the domestic cars won’t get the same long-term mileage as some of the imports but countered that Chevrolet has improved both its quality and its warranties, saying, “at Chevrolet, the products are as good, the best they’ve been in many years.”

Welborn said the Chevrolet trucks are still pulling as much as 50 percent of the volume on new vehicles.

Chevrolet does offer a variety of hybrid vehicle, including a Malibu and a hybrid pickup truck. Chevrolet is also coming out with an all-electric vehicle, the Volt, which he expects to see in showrooms next fall as 2011 models.

Welborn said he’s never seen incentives as high as they are now, and he does not expect any changes on that front in the short term.

Welborn says he has petitioned Cadillac to reverse its decision to pull the brand from Rome next October.

He calls the Hyundai a brand that continues to improve and is trouble free.

Heritage Honda-GMC and Heritage Nissan

Mike Barron sells the Honda line along with GMC models from one location across from Rome High School and Nissans at Rome’s newest dealership location, a couple of miles east on Veterans Memorial Highway.

Barron said inventories have remained steady for the Honda and Nissan lines, but GMC virtually shut down production for several weeks earlier in the year and that levels are just now getting close to normal.

Barron says that mid-March through Thanksgiving are his selling season, and he’s hoping to see significant improvement in the economy by next spring.

The Nissan Altima and Honda Accord are Barron’s biggest sellers at this point, both scoring high in terms of style, fuel economy and affordability.

Honda has taken a lead in the hybrid market with its Civic and Insight models. GMC is offering a Yukon hybrid and a Yukon Denali hybrid to compete in that market and still satisfy the American consumers’ love connection with sport utility vehicles. Nissan will introduce its electric Leaf model next year.

At the end of the day, Rome’s dealers expressed optimism that they are providing improved quality vehicles to the Northwest Georgia market and are hopeful that once people get back to work and are comfortable that their jobs will last, there will be an upswing in sales.