The Car Business Has Not Changed Much Since 1956

It appears that I am a few days behind Matt in cruising westbound down Route 66 in New Mexico. We checked into the legendary Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari last night and discovered that our room came equipped with the December 24, 1956 issue of Automotive News, unearthed from a long-closed dealership down the street. Some of the articles in the trade rag proved that today’s car biz is indeed, in the words of Yankee great Yogi Berra, “deja vu all over again”…

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Book Review: Sports Car Racing In Camera, 1950-59 by Paul Parker

A proper coffee-table car book ought to be heavy on the grainy action photos, light on the words, and include photographs of Škoda 1101 Sports and Renault 4CVs at Le Mans. Sports Car Racing In Camera, 1950-59 qualifies for inclusion in even the most crowded coffee-table real estate.

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  • Jeff I do think this is a good thing. Teaching salespeople how to interact with the customer and teaching them some of the features and technical stuff of the vehicles is important.
  • MKizzy If Tesla stops maintaining and expanding the Superchargers at current levels, imagine the chaos as more EV owners with high expectations visit crowded and no longer reliable Superchargers.It feels like at this point, Musk is nearly bored enough with Tesla and EVs in general to literally take his ball and going home.
  • Incog99 I bought a brand new 4 on the floor 240SX coupe in 1989 in pearl green. I drove it almost 200k miles, put in a killer sound system and never wish I sold it. I graduated to an Infiniti Q45 next and that tank was amazing.
  • CanadaCraig As an aside... you are so incredibly vulnerable as you're sitting there WAITING for you EV to charge. It freaks me out.
  • Wjtinfwb My local Ford dealer would be better served if the entire facility was AI. At least AI won't be openly hostile and confrontational to your basic requests when making or servicing you 50k plus investment and maybe would return a phone call or two.