Nowadays when you go to the dealer to buy or lease a car (whoever heard of a lease back in the 60’s?), they want you to finance through GMAC, etc. so they can make some money on that too. So I imagine the dealerships don’t even have to pay full “dealer price” because they get various incentives based on sales numbers, and maybe it costs them a little less if they get you on the financing side too. Back then, I imagine things were different. The dealer probably had to pay for the car up front, or within a short time after the car is delivered to the dealership. The high volume dealers maybe got some special deals, but I doubt a small town dealer would.
I just can’t imagine. They must’ve been very incompetent, overestimating how many they’d need. Never heard of this kind of leftover inventory before!