VRCG Car Sale Blog

Excellent News for the Rental Car Industry - courtesy of our manufacturers!

2010-06-17T19:43:50Z

The renting public has been really gouged by state, county and local municipalities over the last ten years, as they've been specifically targeted for rental-car-specific taxes, etc. - and oftentimes the tax money went to support things that had NOTHING to do with the traveling public.

Well, our auto manufacturers have taken a wise stand on the issue...and hat's off to them for it!

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-auto-makers-support-end-to-discriminatory-taxes-on-rental-cars-2010-06-17?siteid=nbkh

An Outstanding Article

2010-06-01T16:32:02Z

What lessons can we all learn, as taxpayers, from the GM bankruptcy, which was one year ago today? What parallels can one draw from the GM fiasco vs. what's happening with units of government in the U.S., from your local township to Washington, D.C.?

Read on for a pretty interesting take:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704113504575264641145227612.html?mod=WSJ_auto_LeadStoryCollection

Let's hope we really do learn some lessons.

More "help" from Washington

2010-05-24T15:57:38Z

Now the Federal Government wants to legislate how dealers get retail buyers financed. Lord help us all, they have such attention to detail on other things like Fannie, Freddie, etc.

http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100524/RETAIL03/305249954/1137

It'll be funny (or shameful...) to see where we are as an industry 12, 24 and 36 months from now.

I live 8 miles from Chrysler HQ, so I hope they're right...

2010-04-21T16:35:14Z

...when they say Chrysler's new CEO is a "miracle worker"...

Read on...

http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/21/autos/chrysler_marchionne_profit.fortune/index.htm

Great Day for GM!

2010-04-21T16:19:34Z

Great Day for General Motors, and the US Taxpayer!

http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/21/autos/gm_loan_repayment/index.htm?hpt=T1

...congratulations to all the workers, engineers, white collar and executives that are working together to make the "new GM" a reality!

"Something Fishy" Alright....

2010-02-01T18:41:32Z

Good article here about the 1500 or so "orphaned" dealers who will try to reassert their rights to their privately held dealerships and businesses - some that go back generations...

http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/26/smallbusiness/auto_dealers_gm_chrysler_appeals/index.htm

All of us in the car business know how seemingly arbitrary and haphazard the 'axing' of the dealer body was...particuarly in the case of Chrysler. Who really knows what the rules of the game were? Every time I read something from Chrysler or Government Motors, it seems to change a little bit.

Let's hope current management owns up to the mistakes of the last six to nine months and lets independant businesses have their livelihoods back.

Alright, who doesn't like a good joke?

2010-01-14T19:50:48Z

A very old man lay dying in his bed. In death's doorway, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookie wafting up the stairs.

    He gathered his remaining strength and lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort forced himself down the stairs, gripping the railing with both hands..

    With labored breath, he leaned against the door frame, gazing into the kitchen. Were it not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven.

    There, spread out on newspapers on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favorite chocolate chip cookies.

    Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of heroic love from his devoted wife, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

    Mustering one great final effort, he threw himself toward the table. The aged and withered hand, shaking, made its way to a cookie at the edge of the table, when he was suddenly smacked with a spatula by his wife.

    "Stay out of those," she said. "They're for the funeral."

An interesting read on some root causes for auto business trouble- from a Libertarian perspective.

2009-12-21T18:03:02Z

Huh...leave it to a Libertarian to dig deep into history to find some root causes of troubles in the auto business. Then, to extrapolate current "solutions" into yet deeper problems going forward.

Read on:

http://libertyunbound.com/article.php?id=445

A sad day, yet a happy day, yet a sad day, yet a happy day....you get the idea

2009-12-18T17:34:51Z

First bad move - GM buys Saab. I used to have a Saab, even though I've never taught in college, and they appealed to quirky people. But, people bought them becasue they were quirky.

GM then manages to squeeze all the "Saab-i-ness" out of the cars, making them bland, and therefore not appealing to eccentric college professors. Sales tank. Huh, no surprise. A new Saab really is a horse designed by a committee.

Too bad...

But the good news is that GM finally admits a huge blunder, and shuts Saab down:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/18/autos/saab_closed/index.htm

Another glimmer of good news, this time from General Motors....

2009-12-15T16:54:40Z

Paying loans back early! Or at least starting to think about it.

This is good news.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/15/news/companies/gm_repayment/index.htm

Let's just hope they're not depending on selling lots of $40,000 Volts to pay the rest back. How about selling a few hundred thousand Malibu and Cobalt instead?

Let's Hope Some Sanity Prevails...

2009-12-14T14:30:53Z

Each of us here at VRCG have had close friends, or business acquaintances, lose their dealerships to shortsighted "planning" on the part of the domestic manufacturers. Although any "fix" is too late for many, it looks like there could be a bit of groundswell to get some justice for some remaining dealers.

Read on:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/11/smallbusiness/small_business_auto_dealers/index.htm

Interesting Perspective on the Rental Car Business

2009-11-30T14:25:03Z

A few analysts have been getting "bullish" on the rental car industry. BTW, have you seen what happend to stock prices of the public rental car companies in the last eight months?

Read on:

http://www.capmarkets.com/ViewFile.asp?ID1=321053&ID2=342062717&ssid=2&directory=10954&bm=0&filename=MKM_Agnew_AR_11_16_09.pdf

Kudos to Ford!

2009-11-02T17:40:44Z

Good news....Ford made some money for the first time in a long while:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/02/news/companies/ford_results/index.htm?postversion=2009110211

.....now, let's see if they can continue to make progress against a US Government subsidized GM and Chrysler, and let's pray that the unions don't forget how close they came to BK six month ago.

It's been a long time since there's been anything "not depressing" to post...

2009-09-24T15:27:19Z

...........but that's NOT the case today!

Please read some comments from Mike Jackson from AutoNation!

http://dealersedge.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=9B8CF0E85A7845D8A7C60CB93A92492F

More Brilliant "Management" from Washington

2009-07-22T20:09:21Z

I have friends that have lost their dealships to defacto "nationalization" of the auto industry in the US. They'll collectively lose millions of dollars in this "transition" of the industry.

Yet, Washington continues to dither about the issue. Below is an article that describes some of the two-faced approaches our elected officials take on this issue:

http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/21/autos/gm_chrysler_auto_dealers.fortune/index.htm?postversion=2009072209