(Photos: Corey Dickman via V.I.S.I.T.) The word “markup” is enough to make any new car shopper see red. It doesn’t mean anything more than the dealership saying, “I know we can fleece some sucker out of some money, so forget all about that base price…we will write a number on the window, and we will get it. And you, the one who could’ve bought the car if we hadn’t screwed with that number, well, you have two options: you can either pay our price, or you can go pound sand until you create a diamond big enough.”
Where is the line drawn in the sand for what would be acceptable or tolerable versus an outright robbery? A thousand dollars? Five thousand? Well, for the blue and white Shelby GT350 in the picture, the markup looks like this. And no, you are seeing it correctly:
Ye gods. Is the Shelby an awesome car? Hell yes. Is it worth about sixty grand off the showroom floor? We’d agree to it…of course we’d like it cheaper, but being realistic, that’s decent. A forty-grand markup? You just bought the Shelby and paid Folsom Lake Ford for a well-optioned Mustang GT for the privilege of screwing you over on it. If that’s a bit rich for you, the black/blue car only has a $30,000 markup over MSRP on it’s Maroney sticker.
Can anybody out there top this one? Yowza!
If they can get it, good for them. No reason someone dumb enough to spend that money ought to keep it.
That’s the dealership saying “we’ll keep this car in the showroom floor for awhile”. There are plenty of Shelbys on Ebay for way less. Supply and demand, simple economics.
HURRY!! Get out before they charge you to look!
Watch it drop like a rock once the companies CFO bitches about how many months they are paying the floor plan interest on the car.
That’s “free enterprise”. Charge what the market will bear. Why is it OK for us to do it in our endeavors, such as classic car sales but not a dealership? Double standards were invented by women, get mad at them lol!
Does the dealers asking price include Vasoline?
This is why some cars, that the o.e.m\’s know dealers are going to pull this crap with, should be able to have a corporate owned dealership.. just one..
So, they can bring the market back to normal by selling it for and asking for retail..
I don\’t blame the dealers.. If a fool is willing to part with 40 large over the sticker to have it..
Or, to price it crazy as they want the showroom porn to say for awhile.
but, this type crap is what killed off the f-body in the early 2000\’s..
If you wanted a WS-6 t/a ,at least around here.. it was 15 large or more over sticker ,, same with any 6 speed car..
I\’d be hard pressed to spend 40k on a mustang, or a Camaro.. nevermind a 40k oversticker.. even if I had the money..
Dealers know this car, for the most part is going out the dealerships doors, and into a warehouse, for 20-30 years..
And I think that is a shame..
If the dealer gets it, good for them.. but when stuff like this, is limiting a models or car platform sales, then I think the oem\’s should step in..
Think about it, how many SVO mustangs could ford have moved if the dealership mark up wasn\’t holding them back in sales, same with the WS-6 \”LS\” powered T/A\’s, the 3rd gen LE-1 cars, The mopars, The SSR, the first year.., the GTO in 2004, the G8, Heck even notch back fox mustangs with a v8 got this, once the dealers figured out racers will pay fully loaded gt prices for the lighter car..
There are so many more in the last 25 years,, never even getting into the limited run, or pace cars.. that this happened to.. I\’m sure in 1978 a black t/a with gold pinstrip\’n and bird got this also..
All this does is keep the car out of the hands of those that want them for more than warehouse art.. and will drive them.. The whole point of these type cars is to boost that \”brand\” I don\’t see it doing that long term if no one see\’s them on the road/track/etc..
Well, on the one hand, that’s gouging at it’s finest, and that dealer ought to be ashamed.
On the other hand, why would they sell it for MSRP, only to see it on some big auction site days later for a similar markup because the buyer was not a car enthusiast who actually wanted to own & enjoy a rare and tremendously fun to drive car, but just another “flipper” out to make a buck?
This also makes me wonder what steps Ford is taking with the pre-sale of the new Ford GT to prevent people simply purchasing them “On Spec”, with no intentions of keeping them, but simply to flip them for more $$…………
As P T Barnum once said, a sucker is born every minute.
Car salesman are sleeze balls. They are the dog shit on the bottom of my shoe.
I asked the salesman what the bore and stroke was.
Without hesitation he said $30,000 DOWN (apparently the bore)… and $2,000 per month (apparently the stroke).
Still, I would love the car.
In Canada that car is closer to $80000 msrp. I have a friend who is part manager at a dealer here. They sold the first GT350 they got in for $150000. No financing, just straight you pay us in cash or it can stay here. They had the car on the showroom floor for 4 hours before the deal was done.
As long as idiots will keep paying the markup dealers will keep doing it.