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Traffic Jam. All these cars will descend on a market in which there is such a traffic jam of nameplates and models that many a customer is already confused enough. The customer now has 17 standard-sized cars to pick from, most of them with such a welter of models, motors, options and accessories that it is possible to buy a Chevrolet in more than 100,000 different combinations. And compacts are available in 89 models produced under eleven nameplates. Only the small foreign car has not been burgeoning; since the U.S. compacts were introduced, sales of foreign cars have taken a sharp drop. Says A. C. Robbins, a Beverly Hills Chrysler-Plymouth dealer: "The manufacturers are trying to make a car for every $25 of the market." Some dealers complain that this proliferation confuses not only the customer but the salesman, too. Often compacts with different names are remarkably similar. General Motors' Olds F85 and Buick Special both have the same body shell and almost the same motor; Ford's Falcon and Comet have the same engine; the Chrysler Valiant and Lancer are lookalikes. Many dealers not only battle competitors but knock cars made by the same manufacturer. Dodge puts out a "confidential" booklet for Lancer salesmen pointing out the good features of the Lancer and the bad ones of the Valiant—though both are made by Chrysler. Sample comparison: "Lancer; new styling inside and out. Valiant; last year's styling." The Zestful Game. The wealth of car models—and the dearth of sales—has put new zest into that great American game: the battle of wits between car seller and buyer. Once the customer's main interest was in car quality and dealer reliability, and he bargained halfheartedly. Today's customer is sharper, shrewder, better informed. He knows that dealers are overstocked with cars and anxious to sell. Detroit has egged him on with the great registration battle between Ford and Chevrolet; in the last few years dealers have been forced to cut profits drastically just to move their cars. The first question a buyer now asks when he walks into a showroom is: How much below list can I get it for? Result: haggling is in its heyday. Sighs E.C. McAllister, head of his own Mercury-Comet agency in Dallas: "It's like an Arabian bazaar."
The dealer, suspected for years by buyers of having a little larceny in his heart, now complains that it is the buyer who cannot be trusted. Buyers shop around from dealer to dealer, using one man's figures to whipsaw another with. "They stand there with one foot in the door," says one aggrieved dealer, "just waiting to rush to the next place." What is worse, say the dealers, buyers frequently quote fictitious offers to get a better deal. Sometimes when trading in a car, they replace good tires with bad after the deal is set, or strip off seat covers and accessories before turning the car in. Chortled one New York car buyer who had just got a good price on his trade-in: "The car has only one trouble. Every once in a while, it just stops running."