Daewoo Motor Co.'s U.S. dealers have lobbied General Motors Corp. to keep them in business, a scenario they say looks less likely as the

largest automaker prepares to buy some of the insolvent Korean company's assets, according to a Bloomberg News story by Alison Fitzgerald.

General Motors scaled back a September bid to buy Daewoo assets by a third to $1.7 billion and excluded some overseas sales units, Daewoo's main creditor said April 11. Neither automaker has told Daewoo's U.S. dealers for

sure whether they'll have cars to sell after a contract is reached, perhaps as early as this month.

A decision by General Motors to forgo the U.S. unit would mean Daewoo cars would no longer be sold in the U.S. and 525 dealerships would go out of business, according to Mike Mahoney, general manager of field operations for Daewoo Motor America in Compton, Calif. The unit

has 160 employees and he estimates U.S. dealers employ 6,000 people.

Daewoo's U.S. sales fell 29 percent last year to 48,296 and 3 percent so far this year.

American Independent Automobile Dealers Association (AIADA) President Walter Huizenga sent a letter to John F. Smith and G. Richard Wagoner, chairman and president of the General Motors Corp., urging them to include the U.S. distribution system in any final deal with Daewoo Motor Co.

"I believe that General Motors should continue the Daewoo product in the United States as a separate brand offered under a separate franchise and sold and serviced through the existing dealer body," Huizenga said. "I further believe that this scenario is best for the American consumer, the Daewoo dealer, and, ultimately, for General Motors."

"We're not getting any information on how to deal with this," said Rick Varley of Hermitage, Pa., one of four Daewoo dealers who met today with General Motors dealer-relations executive Ron Sobrero and company attorney Michael Rovinsky. "They tried to field questions, but every time it got to a sensitive nature they hid behind the confidentiality clause."

"GM is getting the buy of a lifetime over there and is going to [hurt] a lot of people here," Rallye Daewoo owner Marc Trieber of Monroe, N.Y., said. According to Bloomberg News, Trieber added that Daewoo officials had earlier assured them any agreement would include the U.S. assets.