Inspired by the recent leftover soap thread, something came to my mind that I meant to ask before.
There has to be times when there are too many cars made by a manufacturer (flops, just plain overproduction, etc.). They try to get rid of them with year end rebates, but I would assume sometimes they still have some left.
I thought of the possibility of relabeling them for the next model year (was made as a 2006, change the VIN to make it a 2007), but from my understanding that is illegal (unless someone an prove me wrong).
So far as I know, this never happens; the cars become so deeply discounted that there’s someone out there who will purchase every car manufactured. Though I have seen, at times, a new car on a car lot which is not one but two model years behind the newest release.
Yup, i’d agree with the last reply. I often see car delears in the UK advertising a new (i.e. never owned/used before) but previous years model at a fantastic discount compared to the latest one. We’re talking about a brand new £15k car being offered for maybe £9k or less.
With deals like that i wouldn’t be at all surprised if they sold every last one.
John DeLorean, in his book On A Clear Day You Can See General Motors, said that automaking is one of the few industries that sells everything it makes. There are, though, some kinds of cars that are thrown away new. When a model is new, a test batch is made to try out the assembly techniques and check for quality. They are all scrapped without being sold. Some are crash-tested, some are torn apart to test the welds, and some are meticulously micro-measured for fit and alignment before being sent to the crusher. Even during the model year, many new cars are taken fresh off the line and torn apart to check welds.
Supplier plants are often sent sections of the body for fit checks.
When Lee Iacocca started running Chrysler many years ago, it was standard operating procedure that Chrysler produced more cars than they had dealer orders for. They just cranked out the cars and stored them on rented lots, where they promptly began to deteriorate. Each year Chrysler would then call the dealers up and make them outstanding deals on the overstock cars just to get rid of them. This was so common that the dealers counted on this sale each year and saved tons of money. This situation was one of the first things Lee stopped when he found out about it.
Although re-labeling a car made for one year as the next years model was probably not done in large numbers, it has happened. When Ford was building the 1969 Shelby Mustang, sales were slow because of competition from other hot Mustangs models. Ford and Shelby decided to drop the Shelby line, but there were still cars awaiting sales and in production. These 1969 model cars were then serial numbered and sold as 1970 model Shelby Mustangs, although they were 1969 models. However, this was a small scale scenario, as less than 4000 1969 models were labeled and sold as 1970 models.
There is also something called fleet cars. Those are any cars that are sold in bulk to a business, like a rent a car place or places that give there employees company cars. When I was selling cars if we had any of the lat model cars out we would sell them (heavily discounted) to the schools for drivers ed, to local places that leased a few sales cars, basically anyplace that goes through cars fast and can use a huge discount without caring about the model year.
