Lighten up Francis....

 

No one is forced to buy the cars at those prices. What amazes me is not that dealers ask for that much, but that people decide to pay it. I guess some people just have a lot of surplus money, want the cars really badly, and/or make poor financial decisions.

If you were a dealer, I’m pretty sure you’d try to maximize your profit. I know I would. That’s kind of the point of owning a car dealership.

 

It is easy for him to say.

That's because everyone has a right to make a profit. C.J. included.

He's not in business as a charitable effort; otherwise, it would be called a hobby.

Heck, I'm pretty sure by now those hefty baseball contracts have run out.

 

I've often wondered the same CJ.
Comparing Apple to Porsche/Ferrari is absurd.

 

Better comparison to Porsche may be Rolex. Semi-mass produced (not rare), plenty of dealers, very well engineered and built, somewhat high status, affordable for those who are affluent but not necessarily rich, high profit margin, classic models that have been around for decades.

 

where are you pulling that number from? not from a real transaction I made that's for sure.

if someone calls me and says "find me a car"- I find them a car. all my local repeat clients are getting their cars at msrp. search my prior threads in 991 3RS forum about using a points system.

also for perspective - the fancy showrooms you guys are seeing under construction are about $600/ft

 

don’t worry, you thoroughly misunderstood point about branding and an apparent luxury item versus a real Veblen good in a different market.

 

No I understand as someone who has owned 30-40 exotics and 50+ porsches that these are different things. Porsche is the best car for the money and the things people complain about here are based on having a short time preference. The apple iphone is disposable even to people of median income in USA. It's assembled by child labor in china. Apple stores are factory owned, like Tesla.

As someone else said it's a lot more like Rolex- franchise owned by private company, with a cult following, uniform quality and good marketing.

All I can ask of the internet is for people to use cohesive logic. Make an argument, but keep the formation/ equation in cohesive terms, tenses, scales, inputs. Reading these complaints is just like reading political autism rants.

 

If Ferrari were to use the Porsche model (it can't and it won't for reasons that have been stated many times), the following would happen:

• RL would implode. All ADM threads & posts would disappear because they are irrelevant;
• The following terms & phrases would cease to have meaning: "purist", "I bought lunch for the dealership so they like me so they will give me what I want", "GM only sells to passionate car guys who are going to drive the car and not treat like a garage queen", "just be patient and you will get the car you want and anyone who is impatient can just pay an ADM to get the car now" and many more;
• The vast majority or people who want normal edition cars would not get one;
• The vast, vast majority of people who want special edition cars would not get one;
• The vast, vast, super vast majority of people who want the super special edition cars would not get one;
• Everyone would ABSOLUTELY be required to buy many cars, sign ROFR, keep many cars, finance many cars, be "present" within Ferrari, and many more requirements that may or may not be known at this time;
• A few get the secret decoder ring...the rest would stumble along and try to figure out the formula which is an ever moving amalgamation between Principal/GM of dealership, FNA, Ferrari S.P.A.

TLDR: Getting a GT car is child's play compared to getting the equivalent at Ferrari. So...STFU and be grateful that Porsche will never be like Ferrari.

 

If you want to spec a new Ferrari yes even those will to pay an ADM can not get a build slot.

 

Why bother responding to him.........waste of time. Running a dealership is not a charity.

 

Amen

 

Doesn't Porsche also tell you how big you have to go on the store based on expected sales? It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that you spend $50mm on a store based on projections of selling XXX units per month and Porsche can only provide XX then here come the ADMs and PCNA turning a blind eye.

 

I do wonder how US dealers would deal with PCNA/PAG telling dealers that if they found out that they sold cars for ADM (to customers or other dealers) that they might get less desirable cars allocated to them. Maybe then they would require add-ons (service, watch, financing, etc) and/or a trade in. I doubt the dealers could fight back using the US franchise laws.

 

to a degree- however most dealerships are transacted like houses- peer to peer with intermediaries. So, you're buying a store based on net profit multiples. Chevy stores can make millions of dollars but have less of a financial moat, more infighting etc so their cost vs earnings is way less than P/Ferrari/MB etc

in terms of SQ Ft- dealers are constantly outgrowing their service dept. This is the really big industry wide problem...not enough skilled technicians to fix stuff. I'm being forced to build new stores for Audi, BMW and Porsche, the ROI is negligible on sales, it's really adding service capacity that helps the most.

this dealership thing is only really profitable if you hang onto the land forever and can utilize good debt cycles, otherwise as soon as you make money for 2-3 years then you get forced to spend 2-3 years or 10 years worth of profits on facilities.

All that being said- it sure does beat coaching minor league baseball or being a podcaster.