Agree with comments - Sandie's described Rootes and BMC well enough for me to add nothing. Owlman's also on the button for raising dealer networks. All the takeovers/mergers/buyout rationalisations still left extensive dealer networks and customers often tended to be just as loyal to a dealer as a make, therefore a rationalised network was seen as dangerous for the risk of losing loyal customers. But the only way to justify duplicated networks was to maintain "artificial" brand differences far longer than logically justified. Not so much Rootes who merged them fairly quickly, but very strong for BMC who continued to support separate Austin and Morris networks for a long time, often with different dealers in the same town. I guess GM US did the same on a much bigger scale.