Honda using Chevys to sell cars?

[balthazar]

This is the scene at a local-ish stand-alone honda dealer. Really catches your eye, especially with rows of grey or dark blue or dark green (all with a plethora of black plastic) honda SUVs as a backdrop. On other days the SSR's hood is up. As of this week it was gone, assumedly sold.

Unusual practice to say the least. Anyone esle seen this done?

[CARBIZ]

Wow, that lot looks really bleak without the SSR out front! Doesn't anybody order red or blue in your neck of the woods?

[Flybrian]

For a month or two, there was a Jaguar XKJ in front of the local Saturn dealership. Very ironically, I've seen numerous Cadillacs on stands in front of Autoway Lincoln-Mercury.

[Satty]

Yeah, dealerships usually put high dollar used cars in front, no matter the make. I've seen a XLR is front of a Honda dealership, one of our Chevy dealerships keeps three GTOs and two Mustangs up front, there is usually an array of imports and domestics parked in the front row of the Acura/Saturn dealership. All it means is that someone didn't want the car and one way or another the dealer ended up with it.

[mjdecker]

I drove by a Chevy dealership yesterday and there was a Porsche Boxter in the front of the lot.

[pow]

Our BMW dealer keeps a Gallardo and F430 out in front, too.

[balthazar]

All righty then. This is not common practice here in central NJ.

[siegen]

That Honda dealer looks more like a parking lot. They probably put that car there because the bright yellow S2000 didn't have enough ground clearance to get over the curb and onto the grass

[balthazar]

No s2000s in sight at this dealer; all the "SUVs" coughelementcough are up front for the serious NJ off-roaders.

Besides, there's always 3 2x4s triangulated into a ramp to climb any curb; that's no excuse. They obviously chose to park a real attention-grabber out front for a change.

[knightfan26917]

Hmm...interesting.

A few months ago, I saw a maroon 1982 Chevrolet Caprice Classic 4-door parked out front of a Hyundai lot. I did a double take as I drove by ... then, still not believing what I saw, I turned around and drove back to the dealership. To my astonishment, a salesman walked out to talk to me about the car ... told me that they had had more people stop in a few hours to take a look at that car than people stopping at the dealership the entire previous week.

Perhaps it isn't such a bad idea ... put a competitor's car ... new or old ... out front to attract attention ... and thus, get people to look at the new cars.....

Cort, "Mr MC" / "Mr Road Trip", 32swm/pig valve/pacemaker

MC:family.IL.guide.future = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort/

Models.HO = http://www.chevyasylum.com/cort/trainroom.html

"Something's wrong in the world today" ... Aerosmith ... 'Living On The Edge'

[Intrepidation]

I've always liked the SSR

[Newbiewar]

Yeah, dealerships usually put high dollar used cars in front, no matter the make.  I've seen a XLR is front of a Honda dealership, one of our Chevy dealerships keeps three GTOs and two Mustangs up front, there is usually an array of imports and domestics parked in the front row of the Acura/Saturn dealership.  All it means is that someone didn't want the car and one way or another the dealer ended up with it.

yea over at my honda dealer i always see an H2 or a Mustang GT out front... and they always sell withing a few days...

but its typical... like for our dealership we put the nicest vehicle we have... maybe a corvette... right now we got a dropped astro van with some rims

[Dragon]

pretty common for the dealers up here. Seen a Magnum in front of Hyundai, Trans-Am in front of Toyota

[Sixty8panther]

When I worked at Bill DeLuca Chevrolet the front showroom & lawn

always had a Corvette or Camaro.... back in fall of 1996 (before I

worked there) they had two C4s, a white/orange pace car '97 Camaro

ragtop and a twin in T-tops.

Years later when the last Camaro was sold (black 2002 SS T-top

automatic ) we had a weird array of cars out front.

First it was a Honda S200 in gray metallic, then a red 1996 Mustang

Cobra (exactly like SP's) then we had a SAAB 900 ragtop and even

a black Lincoln LS.

The rest of the time it was either Vettes, or loaded up Silverados up

front. ONe time we had a loaded up Cavalier LS in yellow, with the

ecotech, all the spoilers & ground effects.

I've also seen Camaros at Toyota dealers prominantly displayed &

even a 1999 Porsche 911 ragtop at my old GMC dealership. That

was kind of silly... sitting between a Sierra 1500 reg cab and a

dual axle dump truck 3500.

Edited May 16, 2006 by Sixty8panther

[Polish_Kris]

Ya, they like putting exotic used cars up front like that...

[ponchoman49]

My local Ford dealer had a prestine white 1987 Monte Carlo SS sitting up front that was causing much attention on a Sunday afternoon. Needless to say it was sold a few days later. It sure got a lot of people into that dealer though.