Whats the best sales "story" you've heard?

I was making short conversation with a Ferrari dealer one time and he proceded to tell me about how a 13 year old came into a delaership he used to work at, carrying a skateboard and said he wanted to buy his Dad a Ferrari, then did! I still have trouble believing that tale......

 

the story as i recall waa that the body was supplied by pontiac (ie- a fiero or firebird, i guess) and the engine was supplied by ferrari. if i remember right, it was in pa. maybe carbon can search the fml archives.

 

Bought a '99 Mercedes E-300 turbo diesel and the guy told us it was worth a lot of money because M-B doesn't sell diesels in the US anymore. A year later we went in and looked at a brand new E-500. I asked him what he would give us for a trade and the exact same guy that sold us the car couldn't give us a decent price because M-B doesn't offer a diesel model in the US. I was like, "Wait a second, a year ago that was a selling point!"

 

How true, always hot and unobtainable when you buy, always a steaming pile of crap when you trade.

 

I have found this to be true in discussing the value of a high miles "driver" Ferrari vs. a low miles "as new" Ferrari. The better deal is the one on the showroom floor that month.

 

When buying a 79 Alfetta GTV in Germany from an Italian, he said - I sell it to _you if __I__ want to ...

For 3 months he concocted various amazing excuses to not sell me the car,
the last being - 'the engine and the transmission are kaput. I take the car back to Italy'

After more or less giving up on the car, we happened to be in the same neighborhood where the car once was, and just "because", we decided to see if the car was still there. It was.

I called the owner and he said: "I saw you looking. Come tomorrow, I sell you the car"

Next day, he indeed sold me the car. He said, "because you wanted it the most. Everyone else gave up on it"

... there wasn't anything wrong with the car, and that remains so after 12k kms throughout Europe.

And I also gained a nice friend who always reminds me - Deutschland weather isa no good for Italian cars anda most of all no good for Italians ... eh. Basta.

 

I bought my first real sportscar in 1982 - a 73 911 Porsche. Bought it from a used exotic car dealer (it was the cheapest car in the store!). Anyway, I asked the salesman if he could tell me about the car - hoping to get the history of it. He said, "It's a Porsche, it's a 911, and it's red .... what more could you possibly need to know." I bought it on the spot!

BTW: I really wanted the car sitting next to the 911 - a mint red 246GTS. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite afford the exorbinate price: $24,000! That was double the price of the 911.

 

I went to buy a Corvette C5 and the local dealer only had automatics. I told him them that I would only buy a six speed. The salesman asked, "why would you do that? An automatic Corvette is faster than a six speed." "What?" I asked, thinking that this must be the village idiot. "Yeah, they only put six speeds in them for insurance reasons."

Do dealers honestly think we are this stupid? It must work on people or else they wouldn't do it.

 

I always love the, "we're not making any money on this deal" line.

I just bought a Ford, supercrewed FX4. I received the same response. I asked the guy how on Earth it is that Ford could possibly afford to run a Formula One team(s), force Ferrari to Fiat, buy Jaguar, Aston Martin, Volvo, Land Rover, Mazda, Mercury and Lincoln without making ANY money.

I guess I was someone special.

Dane

 

???

http://70.85.40.84/~ferrari/forum/showthread.php?t=67572


Thats the only recent thread i can think of

 

Do dealers honestly think we are this stupid? It must work on people or else they wouldn't do it.[/QUOTE]

I'm to the point where if I think a dealer is telling tales I say, "You need to wipe your mouth. There's just a tiny spect of bull **** still on your lips."

Most dealers who do a hard sell have no respect for you, and you shouldn't have any respect for them. If a dealer starts a hard sell on me, I just leave. The converstaion is over. After all, there's a deal around every corner.


Bob Wassam

 

Not all sales stories happen to the buyer. Sometimes they happen to the dealer.

My dad was a small time oil driller back when the Arab Oil Embargo hit in 1973. Oil prices shot up and so did his profits, so he bought a Ford dealership and began running it.

One of the first cars that he ordered for his inventory was for a forest green Mustang with black leather interior.

What got delivered to him from Ford was a Black Mustang with Green interior. That car grew roots, it was PLANTED on his showroom floor. Other cars came and went, but no one would so much as test drive that black Mustang with green leather interior.

Oh man, that was one truly ugly color combination!

Turns out that **other** Ford dealerships had a better "relationship" with the Ford distributor for his region. He found this out as as other cars that he was ordering kept appearing on his competitors' lots, while the dogs kept getting delivered to him.

They were doing it on purpose! It took a full year before the regional Ford distributor finally relented and started delivering the correct cars to his lot.

...And that black Mustang with green leather interior? He lost $400 on it (which was a lot of money on a car deal back then). Even so, he celebrated when it was gone.

 

This reminds me of the white 308 look-a-like I saw at a local Sheetz. I told the girl getting into it "nice 308" although it did have some whacky wire wheels. She admitted the car was a Pontiac, only a few were made and, as a result of Ferrari's lawsuit against Pontiac for blatantly stealing the 308 body, this was one of the only ones. No idea the model name, but I believe the Fiero was a weak attempt to emulate Ferrari after that.

 

I use to run a new car store (nothing fancy, it was a tiny store selling Kias). When I was recruited, I discovered that the previous GM had purchased a 98 or 99 gcyl Firebird for something stupid like $2000 over book. Anyhow, the car had been collecting dust for months and months and months. As our cost was so high, it was nearly impossible to finance the car without taking a huge hit, and most people with the requisite down payment wanted something different.

I told the owner one day that we should just do a sales promotion where everyone who test drives a car gets a drawing into a raffle where the Firebird would be given away. It had been on the lot sooooo long that he seriously considered it.

About two days later, one of my green-pea salesmen came up to the desk with what he said was a *hot* deal on the Firebird. I looked at his 4-square, and the customer, an elderly black woman, wanted to put $6,000 down and pay something like $650/month for 60 months. I figured she had terrible credit--most people who are willing to agree to the stratospheric numbers offered on a 4-square will agree to anything as long as they can get financed.

I ran the woman's credit, and she had a phenominal score. This was a couple of years ago, but I think it was a 780 or something.

Two hours later, she was burning gas, happy as a clam, and we were about $5000 richer. It was too good to be true. A car we'd had for nearly a year, that were had purchased for way too much money, and we made $5,000 on it??!! It was great!

About two months later, after the deal had been packaged and funded by the bank, an elderly black man walked into the dealership and told me that his wife, whom had been confined to a mental hospital, had "escaped" and purchased a car at our dealership. I knew immediately who it was!

Because the car no longer legally belonged to us, I had to refer him to the bank that bought the loan. I'm not sure what happened, if the guy ever got the deal unwound, but I just *knew* it was too good to be true!

 

People actually do that? I've heard of the 4-square but never seen anyone use it to sell.

 

I guess this qualifies as a sales story -

one of my friends went in to buy a 360...he was probably about 19 at the time, and of course the salesman was giving him a hard time, wouldn't let him drive the car, would not give him the time of day at all.

He went in to see the sales manager, said he'd buy the car if he would fire the salesman. Done deal.

 

ROFLMAO ... awesome and good job!

Pete

 

Godsil....

ROTFLMAO....!!!

 

Posts 15 and 16 of this thread:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67955

 

Gosh, those "scruffy teenager, old man in a pickup truck full of oranges, dude in blue jeans with holes in 'em, guy pulls in on a bicycle" demanding salesmen be fired stories have been around as long as their have been car dealers !! ~

 

The car is called a Pontiac Mera. Google it and you will get pics and info.