See, the thing about franchise is that while the HQ depends on the success of the franchisee, the franchisee also depends on the support of the HQ.
There is a reason why McDonald's are so successful. They demand the owner of the franchisee to be an MBA and to be already a millionaire. They did the analysis on the location before opening a new store. They did most of the things so successful that McDs are to be blamed as the cause of obesity.
Now look at Chrysler. They were running a sales bank regardless of how many can they really sell, they were messed up by the 2 previous owners (Daimler and Cerebus), and they have a horrible lines of products that people wouldn't buy. I'm sorry for the dealers, but there is no way they can run a dealership that sell unsellable cars and expect to stay the course forever.
Could it have been better? a more gradual exit? sure, but unless Fiat is given permission to sell 500k cars tax free in the US and all of a sudden people starts buying cars like it is 0% APR and free fuel for 10 years with jobless guarantee, I don't see that the dealerships can be saved.
Maybe they can sell the facilities to the Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Tata, or Chinese imports, and any other willing party, but I don't think it would sell well until the market recovers.