Further Corvette Dealer Follies

My local Chevrolet dealer has not sold a Corvette, new or used, in 15+ years.?They just took delivery of a new Corvette for their inventory.?They were offered an allocation because there was existing availability due to popular options being on constraint.?

In other words, they only got a car because the plant needed to produce cars and the ones on order at most other dealers are on hold due to a lack of availability of popular options.

So what does my local dealer do? They check every box that they can.?Even the options that are under consideration for being phased out for having a low take rate were added… anything to pad the MSRP.?And then they added a $20K dealer mark-up.

What they got is an already expensive car with all the least desirable options saddled with a price that no one will consider.?

I would have gone with a low option base (1LT) or mid-tier (2LT) model to be sold at MSRP to draw in more orders including high-option ones when the order books allow.?

GM will not send my dealer another Corvette, even if a customer ordered one until the current one is sold.?The longer the car sits in inventory the longer it will take before they will be allowed to place another Corvette order.

So my idea would allow the dealership to continually have a Corvette in stock and attract buyers to their other cars.??And it would allow them the ability to build a portfolio of high-net-worth individuals.

Part of my experience comes from freelancing for a Chevy dealer in 2014.?A friend of mine’s family owned a standalone Corvette dealer.?They were so eager to have the new Corvette on their lot that they took the first 2 offered them off the line.?They were also poorly optioned like my current dealer’s Corvette.

Part of the problem was that the cars were manuals and no one on staff drove a stick.?My friend mentioned to her family that I knew how to drive a stick.?They had the bright idea that if the car was seen around town that it would stir interest.

?I would take one of the two cars to pick up food during my lunch break.?I could not eat in the car, but I was paid to go to the hottest spots in town for lunch.

I would drive down the street to the dealer.?I parked in employee parking.?I would then approach the car they wanted me to drive, input the code into the lockbox on the window, and inside was a gift card, a check, and the keys.?

After lunch, I would return the car to the dealership.?

After a few months, they offered me a deep discount on the car (essentially what the car costs the dealership).?As much as I was would have loved to, I could not afford it.

The cars did sell at a steep cost.?The dealership not only lost money on the cars, but they are no longer a top 50 dealer.