#used cars

[political-us]

[americaisdead]

grants, n. mex. april 2025

© tag christof

[blondebrainpowered]

If you're looking for a used car, Go See Cal Worthington (Se Habla Espanol). ca. 1970s

His dog Spot.

[vegaduke]

[coldlaugh]

[bignaz8]

Kurt Russell on the set of Used Cars. Met him on this day with my cousin and his dog.

[hurtmuscle]

rudy russo the icon you are

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Ron Blumberg, Used Cars, ca. 1934. Gouache.

Photo: 1st Dibs

[vio-starclad]

I'm a simple man; I see Kurt Russel is in a film, I watch that film.

[stone-cold-groove]

Welcome to wheel city. Ad for Chevrolet Dealers’ OK Used Cars - 1968.

[sctvamnews]

So much handsomeness and dapperness from one individual:

(JOOEEE) <3

[transpondster]

[phoenixyfriend]

Ko-fi prompt from royaltrashpanda:

Saw your answer about why car dealerships tend to be in the same geographic area of a city. In my childhood neighborhood, we had a street with like ten used car lots all in a row on five blocks, and I’ve always wondered how that worked. They were much smaller than a standard dealership, and not all of them had repair shops attached. (Unfortunately that area has majorly gentrified and there’s none left on the original five blocks.) Based on your dealership research, what would be your take on tiny used car lots all being on the same five blocks? Also kind of related but not really, have you run into anything in your research about the history of the giant statues of men in suits that used car lots tend to have? If you have, I’d very much like to commission another question later about that topic because I’m so curious and have had no luck researching it myself!

My guess would be that they have a higher profit margin since they can probably leverage purchasing in their favor when buying those secondhand cars (especially from things like police auctions), and they can have a fairly consistent and predictable level of demand (there's almost always a new crop of teenagers getting licenses, without the cash for a brand new model), while the clustering strategy probably works even better when your business model appeals directly to a secondhand market where you might have a wide variety within one lot.

But let's see what the research says.

According to website CarEdge, some secondhand dealerships can have average profit margins as in excess of $4k. Now, that's probably skewed by some secondhand cars being luxury vehicles; there's a reason Carvana is topping that list, and most people do seem Carvana's prices on newer, low-mileage models are actually too high. The others are more like 1.5-2k profit margins, which is still respectable.

Granted, these are large dealership groups, rather than small, privately-owned businesses. Independent used car dealerships are looking at a gross profit margin of something like 10-20% depending on how well people bargain with the dealer, according to website ProfitableVenture. After the costs of owning and running the dealership (wages, mortgage, insurance, taxes, etc), there is about 2-3% left for the owner.

I actually want to quote this paragraph from them, as I feel like it's pretty informative on the issue:

The average amount of money that a car dealer makes per used car today is around $500 to $3,000 per car, with your typical run-of-the-mill used cars selling for about $2,500 to $5,000. Have in mind that profit margins on used cars are narrower than they have been in the past due to more information is available. Keeping profit margins a secret is what allows dealerships to take advantage of customers.

Now, that explains how they stay afloat, but the clustering?

...it really does come down to the same reasons as the regular car dealerships, but with the lens of anticipated costs. If you are a parent helping your teenager buy a used car, because they want your opinion and you're better at haggling than they are, then you want to make sure they get both the best possible deal, and the best/safest car possible... but also, you have work in the morning, and do not want to drive twenty minutes to each used car lot. You want to either be able to look up all the options on the internet, or hop from one lot to the next in the span of two minutes. Even with the internet, you want to do a test drive, no?

You also said that none of those dealerships exist anymore, which means they also predate the internet option. Being small means they had to sell fewer cars to stay open, but also that they didn't have the luxury of being a wide enough selection for people to do a cost-benefit analysis of coming to visit them with the expectation of finding a car when they might be able to see more options at that dealership that's only a block away from the other one. Without the internet, especially, their advertising would be limited to car commercials and newspaper ads.

(My thoughts go to Big Bill Hell's Cars and that Tobey Maguire Spidey scene where the used car from the newspaper is doing powerpoint transitions across the screen.)

So the clustering tactic is even more important, in that case. The only way to get your products in front of eyeballs is traditional media and in person, and it's a lot easier to make 'in person' happen if they're already headed to the neighbor.

[netscapenavigator-official]

Looking at used Chevrolet Bolt EVs online like, “Ooh, this one seems like a good deal! Let me check out the interio-”

*photo of car seats that are dual-toned in the ugliest shade of gray you’ve ever seen and the most stainable white you’ve ever laid eyes on*

[cinemaautomobilia]

John Bromfield seals the deal for a 1955 Buick Special Riviera Coupe in "Hot Cars" (1956)