Greedy Bastards.....

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 10:27:22 GMT, "John C." wrote something wonderfully witty:

Who knows what the damn things will be worth in 35 years or what $70k invested will be worth either. Personally I would invest the cash in something other then a car that I don't drive, but hey I don't invest in what most people consider to be depreciating assets normally.

If I had tons of disposable money I'd have a couple of hi yee-haa factor automobiles, but I doubt a $70k Mustang would be one of them. I would have loved to have gotten a Ford GT at close to sticker towards the end of the model run, but alas not enough disposable money for that. I suspect that the GT500's will end up being close to their sticker towards the end of the series just like the Ford GT's were.

Reply to
ZombyWoof
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I didn't start it.... that's what back at you means.... are you stupid?

Reply to
Brent P

I already pointed out where you and others have. Problem is, that's embrassing or something to you so you make up new, absurd points and assign them to me. AC there already stated that the GT500 isn't a free market situation in plain, straightforward language, hence agreement.

I didn't delcare myself anything. When are you going to stop lying? That's the only reason the thread has continued. Each time you post you have some new fabrication to assign to me. My guess is you either enjoy the attention or wish to mask the error of your initial post. The later is likely due to your choice of posts to respond to.

Why don't you list what you think my argument(s) is(are)? How about you quote the relevant segments of text that show that? You're going to have a difficult time at it, because what you call my 'argument' is nothing more than something fabricated out of fat air. Claims that of 'ford having no right', 'hating capitialism', and other such things only exist in your mind.

If we talk about my real argument, that the allocation marketing scheme of the GT500 results conditions that are not ideal free market supply and demand, I can always quote your agreement with that again.

Reply to
Brent P

Nobody said they were.

That would be the OP.

Reply to
Brent P

Agreed. Both Points...

Reply to
tony

Any Ford dealer that has a GT500 can choose to undercut the other dealers if they wish. They could sell their car for $1 if they wanted.

I think a distinction needs to be made here, and I can wrap it up in a plain manner. There are a fixed number of cars available to the public. It is irrelevant that some dealerships don't get any GT500's as the number of cars on the market is the same whether 100 dealers have them, or 500 dealers. The net effect on the price of the car is still basically the same.

There is still price competition between dealers. In this case, the price competition is between all dealerships that get GT500's. Each dealership is going to try for the highest price they can get without losing the sale to another dealership. Basically all they need to decide is how long they want to sit on the car to wait for the buy with the big wallet.

You are trying to imply that price/dealer competition no longer takes place, and that clearly isn't the case. Once the initial surge in demand is satisfied, the price will drop even though the number of dealers getting the cars will not increase.

-Stresa

Reply to
Hawk

Of course... but they would run out of their allotment of a couple and it would have no effect on market price. I am sorry I didn't repeat the whole thing in every instance.

Fixed number? Where did you hear that? What's the number?

All dealerships get some... real the allotment plan that go leaked.

The distribution being so thin they aren't going to lose a sale to another dealership. They might have to come down to find the buyer willing to pay the second highest amount or something like that, but that's the only way they 'lose' when their competition can't order more.

I would replace 'once' with 'if'. If the lower priced dealer can order more then at that time, retailer competition will exist. Until then a dealer isn't losing anything significant by being priced 'too high'.

Reply to
Brent P

"Brent P" wrote:

You act as though there is an infinite supply of everything but GT500's. Every item on Earth is in limited supply, just to varying degrees. The GT500 situation is just as free market based as any other product.

The supply of F-150's is much larger than GT500's and the number of potential F-150 buyers (or truck buyers in general) is also much larger so comparing the supply of the two is really quite pointless.

The only reason the price is sky high right now, is that there are a large number of interested buyers that don't have them yet. Just like the Ford GT, the hardcore buyers will get their cars, and afterwards the price will drop. In my area Ford GT's were selling for over $250k initally. Towards the end of their run they could be had for sticker. The limited market for these cars was pretty much fulfilled so the price came back to reason. The main reason Ford isn't building the GT anymore is that the number of qualified buyers that want them is too small and the price would have to tumble to prevent the inventory from ballooning.

-Stresa

Reply to
Hawk

"Brent P" wrote:

The price being sky high is because of the limited supply...not because the supply is spread around to all of the dealers.

Look at it this way...if instead of giving each dealer 1 or 2 cars, what if they gave 1 dealership all of the cars. Do you think this would help lower the price? NO, of course not. It would in fact make the situtation even worse, because you would completely eliminate ALL dealer competition. One dealer would have the monopoly.

-Stresa

Reply to
Hawk

where did I imply there was an infinite supply or that some other products didn't use allocation ? However it is not as free market as _any_ other product.

The point is that a dealership can order as many F150s as it wants to. A dealership cannot do that with a GT500. Because of this, the way they are priced is different. Instead of F150, let's say it's model X. Model X has an estimated production half that of the GT500, but ford will build and fill any orders it gets. GT500s are still allocated. You have dealership A with one model X in inventory and he's asking $20K over sticker, same with ordered cars, $20K over sticker. Dealership B has one in stock (let's say it's a real ugly color like pink with green stripes and an orange interior) and will order (whatever color combo) for customers at MSRP. Who are you going to buy from? Dealership A has to lower their price or sell few if any model X's.

Now take the GT500, dealership B sells at MSRP, they run out of their allotment of 2. They won't have any more. Dealership A is now the only game in town and they are charging 20K over. That's the difference. All dealership A had to do was wait for dealership B to run out.

I am sure, you won't even address this but go on some sort of made up tangent about me not liking capitialism or some nonsense... But the fact of the matter is allotments change the game when retailers compete with one another.

If that were correct, various other models could not exist.

Somehow, there are new top of line 911s, new vipers, new top end corvettes, new ferraris, new lambos, new aston martins, etc etc every year.... Somehow, they always have a market to sell to at the low volumes they make each year. Sure, they get refreshed and redesigned like every other car, but it's not like ford couldn't do that if they chose to.

Reply to
Brent P

See other post.

I don't recall saying that fewer dealers with more units would lower price. In fact I know I didn't even bring up such allotment scheme. But it's still an allotment scheme, an even less competitive one. An extreme example of how allotment can effect dealer to dealer competition.

The comparision of allotment is to where orders get filled without such a concern. And maybe after the initial phase the allotment scheme will fall away such that dealers order what they have customers for.

Reply to
Brent P

The dealerships CANNOT "order as many F-150's as they want". There is also a limited supply of F-150's. If a given dealership could sell 20,000 F-150's tomorrow, they could not get enough trucks to satisfy that demand. The supply of F-150's is much larger than GT500's, but so is the customer base. I am going to the extreme here to make my point, but the point is valid.

When the Ford Escape first came out my father ordered one. The demand was so high for the Escape at that time that it took them 6 months to get it. The GT500 situation is no different.

Not having dealer allocation would make the price of a GT500 even HIGHER...because there would be LESS competition between dealerships. You may not realize it, but Ford is actually doing you a favor by spreading the cars around to more dealerships. Otherwise only the huge high volume dealers would have them and the competition would be almost non-existant.

-Stresa

Reply to
Hawk

within practical, realistic limits of course. Then again this is usenet and you apparently wish to play games.

Outside the realm of practicality.

Really? GT500s are available for open ordering? Where did you hear that? I am sure lots of people wouldn't mind a 6 or 8 or 12 month wait if it meant paying twenty plus grand less. (not to mention get their choice of colors, options, striping, etc)

You haven't read the allotment scheme then. It's the high volume dealers that get the most in the allotment scheme that was published.

You assert that without an allotment scheme only the high volume dealers would get GT500s. You assert it without anything to back it up. Why would only they get them? Because ford would show them a preference? That preference would just be a different form of allotment.

Of course ford would always need to decide who's orders will be filled first, and that is true with or without allotments. However, without, the dealership in hicksville that ordered 8, will eventually get 8 provided they pay for them, rather than the 1 the allotment scheme says they get.

You could even argue that deciding how to fill the orders of dealers is an allotment scheme of sorts... and that would be true in some respects. However with just that, one could go in, test drive the one they got early and want $70K for, decide it's worth waiting for and order one for MSRP that will come in 6-8 months later. A dealer doing that would certainly sell more and there would be competition for the cars that get delivered later...

Reply to
Brent P

No...because the number of cars Ford ultimately builds has no correlation to how they are spread around to the various dealers. If they plan to build 7000 GT500's, the scarcity is determined by how many people want to buy one. If nobody wanted one...they could build 100 and they wouldn't be considered scarce from a buyers perspective.

Again we are back to standard market forces...

-Stresa

Reply to
Hawk

Ya think you could post in 80 columns?

So if they sent one to chicago and 6999 to europe that wouldn't create scarcity in the USA?

The fixed allotments do create scaricity because they can never be 100% accurate with regard to where the buyers are. Unless of course you see it as easy for buyers to purchase vehicles on the other side of the nation. Nor are all the vehicles entering the market at once.

Above you need to assume that all 7000 are on the market at once and that buyers and sellers have no geographic restrictions.

No, because of the assumptions needed above are not practical.

Now, if instead of allotments to dealers, dealers could take orders for vehicles for future delivery, then that would simulate the conditions you've outlined fairly well. The entire production would hit the market at the same time on paper. Virtually as it were. The order books would be open until X value were reached or whatever limiting factor ford used and having the cars sent to where they are ordered, then yes you'd have standard market forces as you described them.

Allotments could easily have buffalo dealers stuck with the cars all winter and dealers in LA with buyers but no cars.

Reply to
Brent P

No, it wasn't your point. But thanks for suddenly changing your tune.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

Don't you ever tire of insulting people in various ways in your flailing attempts to win arguments you lost long ago?

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

No, it's been said that contrary to your assertion there is STILL a supply and demand situation with the GT500's. You claim that ford has eliminated the supply and demand model resulting in a price higher then you want to pay. To the contrary, it's still supply and demand that's determining price, you just don't like the price.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

By free I only meant that it was a commodity market. ALL our auto markets are "free" as far as supply and demand are concerned since only the seller and the buyer are the determinants of the price. You just don't happen to like the price or availability. Showing that it IS a free market, just not a commodity market.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

Did it ever occur to you that you are the only one who see's it that way? Perhaps you suffer from some or all of the faults you constantly assign to others, like poor reading comprehension, stupidity, lying, etc.

It has been my experience that when half a persons argument is insult they rarely have a good argument.

Reply to
Ashton Crusher

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