#SalesIncentives

U.S. car buyers wandered onto dealer lots in healthy numbers in September, but only because automakers heaped a record pile of cash on the hoods.

So lofty was the snow-capped peak of incentives required to move vehicles last month, it easily exceeded the previous record set in late 2008, when car buyers lived in boxes and sold old shoes on Craigslist to afford the downpayment.

As our own Tim Cain reported this morning, if not for the mid-sized truck sector, total U.S. new vehicle sales volume would have risen by less than one-tenth of one percent. Now, forecasters are reducing their outlook for the remainder of 2016, leading some automakers to start fighting the stagnating market by deploying aggressive incentives.

Sound dangerously familiar? It should. A quote from George Santayana is very appropriate at this juncture: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Dodge dealers wanting to help their customers destroy wannabes with the 2015 Challenger SRT Hellcat will themselves need to prove their worth to the brand before a single car leaves the carrier.