General Motors will withdraw from its contract with Cupp's Chevrolet in Marceline in October 2010.

Dealership owner Bobbie Cupp got the news in a letter from GM on May 15.. As soon as the public found out Cupp's was closing, over 2,700 letters came into the dealership.

People said they'll fight GM's decision because they said GM owes its boom years to dealerships like the Cupps.'

"I bought my first truck here in 1959," Jack Stark, who buys cars from Cupp, said.

But selling cars isn't just a family affair for Cupp.

"We have sold grandfathers their cars, and fathers, and now the grandkids," Cupp said. "And we have gotten more letters that say if your dealership closes, we will never own another Chevrolet."

But if GM has its way, Cupp won't be selling any more Chevys next October, so the Cupps organized a rally to try and save their family dealership.

The city closed off two blocks of Main Street downtown because a few hundred people have showed up. It's not about cars, people here said. It's about community, and what this community stands to lose.

"Out here, we're 30, 40, 50 miles from a dealer, maybe 100, and you can't do that up here," Stark said. "You've got to have someone within reasonable mileage to call who can come and fix things or that you can talk to."

Others agree.

"The people that are here aren't here - they don't all drive GM products, they're here because they support the values the Cupps stand behind, the kind of people they are, and just because it's a small town business. It's businesses like Cupps that elevated GM to where they are," Tina Kelly, who helped with the rally, said.

Cupp said this isn't just about Cupp's Chevrolet. It's about saving the rural car dealer.

In his 40 years in Marceline, 10 dealerships have closed within 50 miles of him.

Other than a Ford dealer in the next town over, he said he's the only dealership left in the area.