65up2d8 said:
Bitter, party of one, your table is now available.
I'm not really bitter at all. I just think the whole thing is rather absurd and really dislike the whole new car buying process. Someone will inevitably buy that car for more than its worth because they must have one right now. A year or two later, their life and priorities will change, and they will probably end up trading or selling it for another type of vehicle. In that year or two, these cars won't be quite so special anymore, not at least where Edmonds & Kelly (of Blue Book fame) and the NADA Pocket Guide are concerned. So someone else will come along and get a sweet deal on this new-used "special car" because the original owner will have eaten the vast majority of the depreciation.
Take a minute and think about some of the cars introduced over the last generation that were sold at a premium when new because they were "special". The original Miata comes immediately to mind, as does the PT Cruiser, the new T-Bird & the Mini Cooper. There was even a waiting list for the Dodge Caravan/Plymouth Voyager when it came out! Ditto for the 86 Nissan Maxima.
At the end of the day they were just cars, and this "special" car is still just a Mustang. Don't get me wrong. It's a great car and in the right hands with the right care it probably has collector potential, which means that the owner must sacrifice the joy of driving it for the joy of just owning it to keep the odometer reading down (and what fun is that?), but it's still just a Ford Mustang. Half the reason that I'm on my third Mustang is because they are a great value for the buck. My first one was a 1995 GT Convertible, purchased from the original owner in 2000 with only 29,000 miles, for just over $13,000. I drove it for 3 years and sold it with 83,000 miles for $10,500. I replaced it with a 1996 Cobra Convertible with 35,000 miles for $16,000. I sold it when I took delivery of the 2007 GT with 82,000 miles on the clock. The original owner of the 96 Cobra paid almost exactly the same price for that car when new ten years ago that I paid for the 2007 GT last month. It was a great car but not worth over 30 grand in 1996 dollars. My point (if there is one) is that the great value of these cars goes rapidly out the window when you pay more for them than they are worth. If I were king for a day, all new cars would be sold with a no-haggle bottom line price up front. When I go into a retail establishment to purchase a computer, washer, lawn mower, television or just about any other durable good that you can think of there is no additonal dealer markup, documentation fees or haggling. Why should a car be any different? I was in my local delership for something the other day and was waiting in the showroom for the individual who I was there to see to meet me and I overheard an exchange between a salesman and a young Marine. This Marine was in there with his wife and small child and the salesman was using every tactic in the book to try to pressure this young man into buying a new vehicle. I got so pissed off that I had to go outside and wait because I knew that I would stick my nose where it didn't belong.
