Approximately two years ago, hubby and I had reason to travel to a town about hundred miles away. On the outskirts of one small town in the middle of nowhere we came upon a field of hundreds of cars. All brand new cars with the sticker labels clearly attached to the windows of each one. As I said, this was way out in the middle of nowhere and the field was surrounded by cow pastures. Meanwhile, we are hearing on the news about the extreme shortage of new cars available due to supply chain problems caused by the ‘pandemic’.
Fast forward to last week and we once again had to travel to that town. In the same field was once again hundreds of brand new cars (obviously not the same ones since they were all shiny and brand new). After we traveled past and then reached the small town nearby, I noticed the car dealership itself had very few cars on its lot as if to give the impression they only had a few cars available (buy one today—before they are all gone!).
So why would there be hundreds of cars parked in a field near a cow pasture a few miles on the outskirts of town? Do dealers just keep one “representative” car of each model on their lot and then let potential customers know there are plenty more where that one come from (or direct them to the field if they want to choose from different colors)? Any thoughts?
100’s of cars in a field, they may be waiting on electronics parts. the microchip shortage put a lot of dealers way behind on orders.
More likely they tell the customer that they don’t have the exact car he or she wanted, but they would call around and work a swap deal with another dealership. The car would magically appear a few days later. Sometimes that’s exactly what happens, sometimes not. It does give the impression that the dealership is working hard to please the customer and may prevent a walkaway.
Why come you won’t tell us the name of the town?
“So why would there be hundreds of cars parked in a field near a cow pasture a few miles on the outskirts of town?”
A possibility:
Honda has a ‘transfer/holding’ lot in rural Montana (I can’t remember the name of the town but it’s in eastern Montana) for cars from Japan and American made Hondas on their way to the west coast — it’s akin to the FedEx hub in Tennessee except it has vehicles rather than packages...