Super-exotics:The Waiting Game

I picked up a recent copy of Automobile (April 2004) magazine while at the gym and stumbled across a fascinating article titled "The Waiting Game". The author (Timothy Ferris) recounted the all-too familiar tale of waiting 2 1/2 years for his Mercedes SL55 AMG and how he was continually pushed down the list again and again by fat cats dropping hefty cash premiums on the dealer to procure his slot. Interestingly, he also discovered some Pepperdine students who, originally as part of a marketing project, researched this phenomena and ended up with a real-life lucrative niche business of matching allocated slots with potential buyers found on ebay and pulling in $15,000 a month in commissions, with no start-up capital whatsoever! (Jim Schad, are you out there!) Very enlightening article. I don't know if this is still on the newstands and there is apparently no link to it on Automobile mags website but if anyone REALLY wants it, I could snag it from the gym and fax it to you. (The good news is by the time I finished it I had done 45 minutes on the lifecycle in a blink of an eye! LOL)

 

The author had apparently complained about it to the manufacturer who stated that although they frowned on this practice, if they exerted pressure on the dealers, they may be violating anti-trust regulations and get themselves in hot water.