"When dealers attack" R&T Article

[Blk2015GT]

HIt sat for more than thirty days with no serious offers from walk in traffic, lots of can I test drive it?

But remember foot traffic and calls are worth something too. The car sitting there is pretty much free advertising.

Just like on black Friday where they announce the $100 flat screen TV and they have 10 of them. They want to get people in the store and interested about other things (cars here) too, not just sell the one GT350; "oh you can't afford the car with ADM, well I have a 435hp 5.0 GT same color on the lot that's half the price with very similar equipment; lets go take a look"

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[PencilGeek]

Respectfully, I think it's hard for you to say or know with any certainty if people are buying up or down for this car.

I purposefully made no such claims. I simply pointed out the author didn't seem to consider it and maybe wouldn't have changed his conclusions anyways.

Your personal experience is just that.

I acknowledged that twice in two posts. Not sure what else I'm supposed to say. :shrug:

Congrats on your R!

 

[CaptainUnderpants]

But remember foot traffic and calls are worth something too. The car sitting there is pretty much free advertising.

Just like on black Friday where they announce the $100 flat screen TV and they have 10 of them. They want to get people in the store and interested about other things (cars here) too, not just sell the one GT350; "oh you can't afford the car with ADM, well I have a 435hp 5.0 GT same color on the lot that's half the price with very similar equipment; lets go take a look"

THIS!!! ^^^^^^^

While only anecdotal, The SoCal Long Beach dealer close to me held on to 2 2016's for the last year, and only just let go of one. Where does the Shelby in a dealership always sit? Right in the middle of the showroom.

With interest rates near zero, holding costs are negligible. Most dealerships in SoCal have 100+ mustangs in inventory and only 1 Shelby. Is it best to sell One Shelby, or use it to sell 10 Mustangs? I say the latter.

This local Long Beach dealership maintained a 20k ADM on the cars, as many local dealerships do. Then when somebody comes in to see the Shelby for 80k, and the salesman says "But you could have this GT with a V8 for half the price, they are very happy with spending 45k for the GT. It probably makes the negotiation on the GT go better for the dealer as well. "We will even sell you the GT for only MSRP" sounds pretty good in comparison to a 20k markup. The worst that can happen is somebody with more money than sense comes in and buys the Shelby. The best that can happen is they don't sell the Shelby and they sell 10 more mustangs in the meantime at a good price to the dealership. Having watched this local dealership, and at least 5+ other local dealerships, I could only conclude that they DIDN'T want to sell the car.

Confirming this theory was my purchase. I got my Shelby from a dealership in Klamath Falls Oregon. It was simple as hell, I called them and asked if the car was available. They said yes. It as a customer special order and the customer backed out. They asked what I was thinking in terms of price, I said MSRP, to which they said, ok. I gave them a credit card for a $1,000 deposit and the car was mine. Flying into the town on a twin engine Saab Turboprop plane, it was clear that this was farming country. Previous to my trip, I checked their inventory of Mustangs, they only had 1 in stock, other than the Shelby I was to pick up. When I got there, it was also clear their sales market was trucks. What self respecting farmer is going to come home with a Mustang when they need to move equipment, bails of hay and cattle. The value to the dealership was not to pump up a market segment that they didn't sell.

My theory then is that the Shelby is worth more to the dealership as advertising eye candy, than as a product to sell, and therefore will discourage the sale of the car unless you Make them an Offer they CAN'T refuse. I.E. high ADM.

What do you think?

 

[firestarter2]

I agree if a dealer gets 4 gt350s sell or not makes no difference to them.

But when Ford is looking at the sales of Halo cars it may effect the next one. I want more of these cars and the only way to garantee that is that as many as possible are sold

Any dealer who told me they wanted 20k ADM on I'd never buy from. I'd not even ask about a gt500 or raptor after this nonsense

 

[stanglife]

I purposefully made no such claims. I simply pointed out the author didn't seem to consider it and maybe wouldn't have changed his conclusions anyways.



I acknowledged that twice in two posts. Not sure what else I'm supposed to say. :shrug:

Congrats on your R!

I wasn't arguing with you - just pointing out that it's understandable how you and your immediate acquaintances could easily feel one way but we don't really know what percentage of actual buyers that represents.

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