Why Buy a Chrysler?

Why would anybody want to buy a gas-guzzling vehicle that requires frequent maintenance and has a significantly shorter life span than its competitors from a company that has gone bankrupt?

I have no earthly idea, but this article offers a few accurate suggestions. People are still willing to buy, which astounds me.

It looks like a lot of dealerships will be closing down soon. Ours is one of the last in town. All of the smaller dealerships have shut down or have combined the larger ones that sell Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep. We are one of two, I think, large dealerships left, both of us on opposite ends of the city. None of the salesmen seem worried about it. Their only concern is to sell cars. That is their focus. Gotta sell a car. Nothing more.

The phones are busy, but we are selling fewer vehicles. Perhaps people are calling just to see if we are still here. Or maybe they are calling with unreasonable offers, thinking that they can wrench a better deal from the corpse-like hands of Chrysler.

Actually, they can.

If they have good credit. Most people, I have learned, do not. They are trying to live beyond their means. I see it every day. People with virtually no income, bad credit, and enormous debt are all trying to purchase brand spanking new vehicles. A couple of years ago, they would all probably have gotten approved. With this in mind, America's current financial crisis comes as no surprise to me. People like to buy things. Unreasonable things. Unsustainable things. Anything.

Every time a customers walk through our front doors and gawks at the classic automobiles on our showroom floor, they say the same thing. "I want that." A phrase, shouted by children after every commercial, three simple words that encompass the mindset of nearly every American.

Service customers are impatiently pacing around the showroom floor. Our new-car manager is introducing himself to some customers. Things are as usual. Footloose is playing over our Muzak system and Jeff, our youngest salesman, is absurdly dancing and singing into an imaginary microphone. His customers are happily walking across the lot with the keys to their new American made gas-guzzler.

Americans and American cars; they both consume too much.