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Why did the dealers hike the prize up on the TTA when new? Quiz :-)

Jan Larsson

Jan Larsson

Administrator
Staff member
As per the title ... lets see what creative ideas we can collect here ... I will then tell the reasoning as I was told very recently :)

So what do you think was the reason dealers asked for so much more money over sticker price back in 1989 when these cars where brand new ?
 
Dealers always do that when they think they have something everyone wants. When the Gen 5 Camaro came out they did the same thing. Try to buy a New 2014 Corvette for sticker price when they finally hit the showrooms. Dealers are a bunch of thieves.
 
I have two theories.

One is higher costs to produce the car, including the swapping of the drivetrain, and the back and forth from Van Nuys to PAS. More labor involved and cost of testing, etc

Second is reverse pyschology. Price the car high to make people think they are missing something. The "I just HAVE to get one of those cars".
 
The GNX was the first car that I ever heard of price gouging on. Is it the first car that it happened too? I agree that the dealers were convinced that the demand was going to outweigh the production folowing the footsteps of the GNX. I've only known of one person that got his GNX at sticker and he took his lawyer with him to purchase the car. I know that a couple TTAs by me ended up selling for sticker. I sure know a lot of cars that have been dealer gouged since the TTAs.
KID
 
I would think the fact of a limited production and dealers only getting a few each maybe made them try to get above sticker. Supply and demand will sometimes do that. Anything to make a bigger profit. Bastids
 
The dealers saw it as a limited production run and wanted to maximize there profits by having price mark ups. This first occured in 1978 with the Indy Corvette pace car. Wall Street article saw the car as an instant collectable. The next year it happended with the 1979 10th annivesary Trans Am.

Of course it happened with the GNX as well.

Dave
 
For 1989 Obviously it was the "halo" car for Pontiac. The problem is marking them up will make them sit longer. Maybe that was the point? have them sit in the showroom for more exposure?
 
DaveGershon said:
The dealers saw it as a limited production run and wanted to maximize there profits by having price mark ups. This first occured in 1978 with the Indy Corvette pace car. Wall Street article saw the car as an instant collectable. The next year it happended with the 1979 10th annivesary Trans Am.

Of course it happened with the GNX as well.

Dave
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Oh yea I remember hearing this tto!
KID
 
dwhess504 said:
For 1989 Obviously it was the "halo" car for Pontiac. The problem is marking them up will make them sit longer. Maybe that was the point? have them sit in the showroom for more exposure?
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This is a very good point! And not a bad idea to sit on a car for a while just to attract customers. Worst case is they end up selling it for sticker.
KID
 
The hardtop cars wouldn't sell. I know mine was passed around to 3 dealers before it sold, started in El Paso and made its way to California before selling.
 
2QUIK6 said:
The hardtop cars wouldn't sell. I know mine was passed around to 3 dealers before it sold, started in El Paso and made its way to California before selling.
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Yeah, that's kind of ironic as i would trade both my t-top car's for a hardtop...:yes:
 
dwhess504 said:
For 1989 Obviously it was the "halo" car for Pontiac. The problem is marking them up will make them sit longer. Maybe that was the point? have them sit in the showroom for more exposure?
Click to expand...

Wow that did not take too long ... very good "guess" there ...

Speaking to Bill Owen in person the other week ... this is exactly what he told me and Tom Goad verified this as well Bill said.

The TTA sitting in the showroom was the best marketing promotion the dealers had pulling potential customers in and selling something from the rest of the Firebird line up ...

Bill spoke to dealers himself back in the days as they hiked the price up and told him why ... they did not want to sell them ... then he spoke to Tom Goad about it years later (and again very recently when they meet up) and Tom confirmed that this was the case and really helped shift the rest of the 1989 Firebird line-up.

So yes they did do this on purpose and yes there were money involved in that decision (at a dealer level and of course for Pontiac) but not to make more money out of the TTA rather keep that one in the showroom helping to sell more Firebird's in general ... and it worked apparently according to what Tom Goad told Bill.

So lots of interesting angles on this and I'm sure some dealers did get greedy and tried to cash in but majority used it to their advantage shifting more Firebird's in general (and that's the volume they needed rather than earning a few more bucks on selling one single car).
 
Do I get a Pony?

I sold cars for a few years at a dodge dealership in early 2000's. For being a super small dealership we actually kept two Vipers on the showroom floor. We had the only ones withing like 100 mile radius. They sat forever! I finally sold one we gave it away and I made a whopping $100 commission on a 70k car.

But we did try to keep at least one for an attraction. We let people sit in them and all no ropes like at some of the big dealers.
 
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