You’ve got one on your lot right now, a Mooch Magnet. You know the car (or truck). It’s the one that everyone who is attracted to it either can’t afford the sucker or can’t pull the trigger and it. It’s a vehicle with a potentially great gross, but every time you see someone gawking at the little beauty your stomach does a slow turn.
“Here I go again!” you mutter to yourself.
Mooch Magnets can be either new or used. It just depends on the dealership. I don’t suppose that Kia dealerships have a lot of Mooch Magnets unless it’s on their used car lot. Let’s face it; no one is coming in daily to drool over that cute red Rio you’ve got in the showroom.
Luxury car dealerships have it the worse, I’d guess. There’s an irritating portion of the population that loves a Mercedes Benz or Lexus, but no way in Hell can they buy one.
Chevy dealerships have a built in Mooch Magnet. It’s called the Corvette. Constant readers of this blog know how I feel about Corvettes; I hate ‘em. If you’ve missed my ranting on the subject, check out “I Hate Corvettes” posted in November ’07.
When you work on a used car that specializes in low-end vehicles and low-end customers like I do the situation can be quite sad. My current Mooch Magnet is a black 2006 Buick LaCrosse with 20” chrome rims. It’s pricey for our lot at $9495. You see no one in this neighborhood can afford a car like that. It might as well be $50,000! The only hope I have is to sell it on the Internet.
The minute the LaCrosse hit the front line the deluge began: flakes, flakes and more flakes. Flakes have an incredible ability to choose exactly the wrong car for them. You see, in their eyes it’s all about stylin’. Even though they don’t have a pot to piss in, it’s almost mandatory that they drive a car that fits the hip-hop image of what they believe their life should be like. It doesn’t matter that the LaCrosse is a little edgy and is too much money for their semi-welfare budges. It’s black and has tricked out rims, and that’s all that matters to them.
Another classic Mooch Magnet is the Cadillac Escalade, probably one of the most useless vehicles on the planet. I mean, at least you can take a Hummer camping. A new Escalade is a great way of letting people know that you don’t mind flushing money down a toilet. A used Escalade lets everyone know that you are either really cool or have a screwed up value system. But when you have one on your lot, here they come, glassy-eyed, full of Las Vegas livin’ dreams, and determined to do the (usually) undoable.
“Please let me drive it! Please! Please! Please!”
Oh, God! Just the thought of it makes me want to scream!
So what’s your current Mooch Magnet? Leave a comment and let me know. Is it a Mustang GT Convertible that every 20 year old male in town wants but can’t even afford the insurance? Is it that used Lincoln Navigator with 92,000 miles on it that no one can qualify for? You have to gird yourself and take on the task of talking to that goof who is currently taking photos of it with his cell phone. It’s your job and besides, you just might make a big pop. But oh what hell you have to go through to make it!
Talk to you later,
David
7 comments:
Our current one is a Ford lifted super duty. I almost need a ladder to get in the damn thing.
And fun fact for you - they can't sell the LaCrosse up in Canada - that's actually slang for masturbate in Quebec ;)
And forwarded your corvette story to our corvette specialist - nothing like riling people up on a Saturday!
Human nature is to aspire to that which we cannot possibly obtain, hence the popularity of movie stars who are unimaginably good-looking and equally unavailable. No one dreams of dating a fat, acne-covered, dirty biker chick. Well, no one who's not on crank, anyway. We all imagine ourselves with Roselyn Sanchez, or Jennifer Anniston, or someone else who is if not drop-dead beautiful, at minimum, a 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. It's the same with car desires. No one 'aspires' to own a Renault Fuego or a Kia Rio. Those are 'consolation prizes' on the highway of life. We all get wood for something that's muscular, manly, and sexy. Of course our 'wiser' selves sometimes over-rule the one-eyed man and we wind up buying a hatchback or god forbid a van. But what drives traffic to showrooms is the 'gotcha' car, and this translates to the used car lot with the 'impossible dream' vehicles that David mentions in his blog. I mean if you aren't gonna get laid no matter what you do, why not go big and dream about a REAL HOTTIE (babe or vehicle)? If your score is 450, your idea of a big night on the town is 2 junior whoppers at Burger King, and your Gang membership card just expired because you were in Pelican Bay, you might as well mentally masturbate over the car that you'd need God as a co-signer for, and even then the approval would be 'iffy'.
anon.
What does this have to do with a mooch magnet?
David
Really good blog posting David. I was laughing out loud reading this one. Probably one of my favorites.
Oh man, we have the ultimate mooch magnet: a 2004 Infiniti QX56 (large SUV) with 26" chrome rims. The tires look about an inch thick.
It has an aftermarket chrome grill with one of those "pimp your ride" audio systems in it. I think it has 6 video screens. Anyway, it also has 187,000 miles and we only put it out front because it passed state inspection.
The other day, a sled full of thugs pull up and park in the middle of the entrance lane. Four of them get out - all holding KFC boxes and eating chicken while looking at the QX56.
We all were watching as the salesman walked out and asked "what are we doing today?" to the group. They actually wanted to climb all around and probably drive the truck while spilling chicken and biscuit crumbs all over the lot.
Incredible. This ranks up there with my most memorable mooch magnets.
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