Auto Trends

Balloons Sell Cars, originally uploaded by manotron

Dealerships have to work hard to bring new buyers onto their lot. They give away key chains, food, gas, free test drives in fancy cars, and anything else they think will bring in a crowd. Since the recession started back in December of 2007, they have become even more desperate. They would practically do anything to get you in the door, and that is exactly what one dealership in Greeley, Colorado did.

The Weld County Garage is your typical GMC, Pontiac, and Buick dealer. They came up with a rather creative gimmick designed to help them sell a few extra cars through the month of may. What they did was tell each customer that for every vehicle sold through the month of May, if it rained one inch through the hours of 7AM through 7PM on Memorial Day, those vehicles would be free.

Now we all know how hard it can be to get a free vehicle. You could go through the rigmarole of the television game show The Price is Right, you could lose your shorts in Las Vegas, or play every sweepstakes known to man… But you will still probably never in your life experience the triumph of receiving a free vehicle.

Well, the gimmick worked, the dealership sold over $700,000 worth of vehicles. As Memorial Day came the forecast called for lots and lots of rain. The day started off with heavy rain. Then it rained, and rained, and then rained some more. By the time the late afternoon hit, the owner of the dealership must have been sweating bullets. I’d say Mustang Bullitt’s, but that’d be a whole other dealership.

The day produced well over one inch of rain, but there was one bit of saving grace. They had mentioned that the rain would have to come from the airport. While the dealership itself received bucketfuls of rain, the airport was just shy of an inch total rainfall. Thankfully, the dealership had taken out an insurance policy prior to making the deal, so they were covered even if they did have to shell out the $700,00 in new vehicles.

A Moral to this Story?
Moral 1- Insurance is your friend!
This includes car insurance, house insurance, life insurance, and health insurance. You can never have too much insurance.

Moral 2- Murphy’s Law (Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong) is not your friend!
If there is anything in life you can always count on, it is not to count on anything!