It is generally a lot easier to buy a new car in the US. In the UK you drive one, you spend ages choosing the exact spec you want, then you wait a couple of months or more for the car to arrive. In the US the forecourts are enormous, filled with many, many permutations of car. So you can drive home in your new car if the fancy takes you.
So who owns the cars? It turns out that the dealerships own the cars – they have them tied up in some sort of complex financing arrangement. What happens when the industry is in the toilet and you have a forecourt full of inventory? You panic. Then you try to shift the stock.
This is a great thing if you happen to like going into car dealerships pretending you want to buy a car. As I do. Quite a lot.
It’s good sport – the sales team are absolutely gagging to get rid of the cars and it is interesting to see how far they will go. I bet some of them would trade in a toaster to shift a car. Recently the sales team at the Porsche garage I was *ahem* visiting was quite prepared to drop their pants on price without any prompting. If their starting gambit is dropping 10-12 percent off the price it would be interesting to see where negotiations might end up. I’d better be careful. I might accidentally buy a 911.