they can and do beat on the dealers. if they find out the dealer is marking cars up an exorbitant amount, and GM is closing dealerships... while GM pulling out of a dealership doesn't necessarily put that dealer out of business (ie, Ocean Chevy, Jeep, GMC and T&C Lincoln all in the same dealership) it will hurt a dealer to lose the front-runner in its line-up of cars. they won't sell them any more cars and won't allow them the license to advertise as a GM dealership, and then comes the signage and all of the support documents, POS displays, etc. so a dealer will get hit in the wallet, no matter how they try to spin it. and GM can call their markers in all at once, too, which causes a tailspin in the back room. and the dealer can only request certain cars be sent to them, but in the end the manufacturer is the one who makes the decision on what to send them. this is why the dealers are getting v6 cars first... imagine being a chevy dealer and NOT getting even one camaro for your lot (hmmm, Ocean Chevy...) and having to wait until the price storm settles to get one to sell and having to take a hit on each and every car you do sell (less than MSRP).
please know to separate the dealer from the manufacturer. and know that MSRP stands for Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price... it's up to the dealer to fix the retail price. if the dealer can sell them for $5k over, then that's what the price will be. sooner or later they won't be able to sell them at that price any more, and that's when Jim will buy a new camaro.
remember the GTO?