by
Robert Hollenshead
11/30/2011 12:19:43 PM
Thank God for Spring. Sixty days from now is smack in the middle of the Spring market. So there is no downside to buying anything at this point. If you recall, last February was the hottest little spurt on heavy sports cars we have seen in decades. Astons, Lambos, SLs and Porches were flat out ripping. We had a wild run with Vettes, Mustang GTs, and SRT8s. A sixty day turn puts you smack in the middle of a wholesale profit if you wake up and use your noggin right now.
I have over 700 units going to the block on Friday. We ain’t loaded for bear, we’re loaded for Noah’s Arc. My theory is simple. We are looking to sell every one with full expectation that we will show up with another 700 next week and the week after and the week after and until I am dead. Simple. I can’t get complicated or scientific with ideas of where to sell and which ones not to sell and it’s a Holiday and it rained or God
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by
Robert Hollenshead
11/17/2011 3:17:20 PM
By logging in and filling in the units you are looking for, our system notifies you when those specific cars hit our inventory. Dealers from all over the world have been taking advantage of our “just traded” inventory. We will be debuting our mobile app next week and you will love it. Besides giving you access to inventory as it hits us, you can update what you need anytime anywhere. It really is slick. And it works. Call Sheikh at 732 666 8888 when we have a connection. He will finish the bill of sale and pull the unit for your trucker.
Tomorrow, Friday the 18th, I have 600 units in the 17545, Manheim, Pa. It is one click off of a car show. Hundreds of everything. Hundreds of Lexus that exist nowhere else. Sixty creamers in lane 6 starting after noon (I must not sell enough cars to get good numbers as nutty as that seems so I start at 12:15 PM, good for folks in a different time zone). I
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by
Robert Hollenshead
11/12/2011 11:29:00 AM
Over the past four decades that I have been in the wholesale business certain explainable realities make you spend some time scratching your head and talking to yourself. On the surface, it simply makes no sense. I am referring to a class of cars that for one reason or another are out of whack.
With the aid of hindsight it has always been due to some market anomaly based on number of specific criteria such as a new model, a build shortage, a build date needed to export, miles, import duty or regulation. It happened in the early 80s with the K car, the body 1982 Chrysler 5th Ave, the 84 Vet, the Cross fire injection Indy Camaro, the front drive Lincoln Continental in ’88, the NSX in 1991, mid 80s Ferraris, the L6 BMW in the 80s the 8 series BMW.
It happened with the new body SL in 1990 when we paid sticker, $91,000 and sold them for $105,000 on the block. And then 1998 ML320 when it first was built we were selling them
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by
Robert Hollenshead
11/4/2011 11:04:34 PM
When a lane goes dark.
Simulcast is now as important to me as air. Today was the proof.
Today we were packed and ready for a monster sale to break out of a six week malaise of a lack luster no spark market. It started off for the first few hundred banging. We have never seen more simulcast action with multiple bids from everywhere except the moon on damn near every car. Then we sucked into a black hole, simulcast shut down with a server problem.
There is now way to describe what it feels like to go out and flip every rock, kiss every ass, drag them in, get them ready, primp them to a tee, and at the moment that you have 300 remote bidders plus a room pack full of buyers, the internet goes down, black, nada, the party is over, the internet bidders are gone and ain’t coming back. It was down for two hours. The definition of frustration without compensation.
In my world it’s the equivalent to having
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by
Robert Hollenshead
11/2/2011 1:38:05 PM
I talk to dealers all over the country and all over the world. I am fascinated by their points of view. Guys with time in the business like to talk about the good old days and relate stories about how much fun it was back in the day. I hear it all the time, “it ain’t like it used to be, it ain’t fun anymore.” There is no doubt that we could write a book that would wind up looking like the Encyclopedia Britannica with volumes of stories that, with hindsight, really are hilarious. In fact very few non-car dealers would believe the stories were true and probably wouldn’t care. It would be like a nostalgic old dusty dude that rode on the Pony Express relating his experiences to the guy running the telegraph company.
In my view, we are smack in the middle of what will be seen in the future as “the good old days.” The way things are changing is really exciting. We are on the home page of KBB. The action is
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