January 5th, 2010
Massive discounts on defunct Pontiacs get dealers scratching
Bizarreville auto dealers are preparing themselves for a potential onrush of new customers stemming from GM’s announcement of massive discounts on Pontiacs as that line gets phased-out. Other dealers are concerned that the decision to sell these new cars as “used” cars may open pandora’s box of new sales gimmickry not seen since the advent of the rebate.
Dealers are optimistic in spite of the fact that Pontiac sales have been just about zilch in Bizarreville for the past 25 years, ever since GM changed its Pontiac brand strategy from high-performance, leading-edge designs to mediocre-performance, mundane crapmobiles. “We knew it was a risky strategic shift,” commented a Marketing Manager with the former Pontiac. “But our market research told us that customers were no longer interested in performance, styling, handling, or image. They thought all that ‘Wide Track Pontiac” malarky was incomprehensible. It wasn’t until many, many years later that we found that we were surveying a bunch of grammaws from Peoria…man, we really blew that one.”
All are anxious to hear details on the massiveness of the discounts. “Hope it’s not another one of those ‘100 bucks below invoice’ scams,” lamented a shopper at Bilgewater Pontiac. “Between that and the Employee A-plan discount pricing shell-game, we have become pretty disillusioned with pricing shenanigans by these guys…and have normally headed over to the Studebaker dealer.” When told that Studebaker has been defunct for many years, the customer responded, “Really? Guess we’ll have to head over to the DeSoto dealer, then.”
Many potential buyers are nervous about how Service will be handled after the dealers take down their Pontiac signs, and raise signs for a different brand, probably Asian-based brand. “We’ll service the Pontiacs,” claimed the Service Manager at Bilgewater. “…as long as we can scrounge up parts from the junkyards and find elderly mechanics who haven’t yet forgotten how to work on ’em. The only other issue could be the demands from our new carline, Bangla Desh Motors…and our expectation of a steady stream of warranty issues with their rubber-band technology…that could zap our resources to work on lower priority stuff, like our old whats-its-name brand.”
Dealers will provide new customers with a signed letter from the CEO of Pontiac’s new parent company, Motors Liquidation Corporation, stating the company’s support of the line. “I’ll state my personal reputation on it,” he said, while not fully disclosing that his current professional reputation is scooper-ready.
Disclaimer: all stories in Bizarreville are pure fiction, even the ones that sound like they could be real.