I remembered the dealer’s name. It is/was Don Rosen BMW in Bala Cynwyd! I read recently that they started driving it around the neighborhood.
In October of 2007 when I was shopping for a new car I came across a brand new “old stock” 2005 Dodge Stratus at a dealership. Too bad it’s not the kind of car I was looking for because they were all but giving it away.
Anyway, that’s the oldest model new car I’ve ever came across at a new car dealership.
It was a long time ago, but my father in law, who worked for Toyota Motors (the distributor, not a dealer) found two Celicas or maybe they were Corollas, that had been misplaced at the Newark facility - literally left behind a temporary wall by mistake for years. That’s back when all Toyotas were imported of course. Bring them in by the thousands, and I guess a few do go missing. Both were snatched up by employees. My brother in law drove his through college, it ran fine with no problem, except for removing the cosmoline and the yellowing plastic.
This sort of thing is extremely common in the Military Surplus Firearms market.
During WWII (and afterwards), countries built millions of rifles, and towards the end of the war a lot of them just got put straight into storage, or were refurbished after the War ended and put into “reserves” in case they were needed at some point in the future. 30 years (and more) later, someone says “Why have we got a warehouse full of WWII bolt-action rifles sitting here?” and they get released onto the civilian market for sale.
And that’s why you can buy a Mosin-Nagant M91/30 or a Mauser K98 that’s in “As-new” condition (despite having been made in 1944) for a surprisingly cheap price in the US.