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‘87 Buick GNX remains unsold in California dealership


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2 hours ago, bbowser said:

The dealer turned down $150K?  I agree its a cool car but I would think that's a fair price.

I agree. 

 

3 hours ago, TransAmMike said:

Those were crazy fast cars (consider its a V6 tho turbocharged). Its amazing that according to the article no one would bid over "sticker" on that particular car.

Yeah, I remember they were crazy fast cars back then. 

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3 hours ago, slusher said:

If they really want to sell it they would.

Winner winner . They were not worth 150 grand when they were 5 years old. The dealer is just a collector that wants free advertisement to sell his over priced g body. There is a dealer in Monroe MI that still has a Fox Body Cobra R that they would not sell. 

When these came out I picked up 3 sets of takeoff wheels form them. I wonder what the set my brother had on his Impala are worth now. They are standard Grand National wheels and tires. LOL

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Back in the early '70's when I was a service rep for Chrysler Corporation, I had a very small (20 vehicles sold per year) Dodge dealer in rural Illinois that had 7 or 8 brand new, old Dodge cars and pickups literally parked up against his barn at his farm home.  (Besides being a dealer, he owned a farm that he leased out to others to actually farm.)  When a new vehicle arrived at his dealership, he'd literally take out the check book and send Chrysler a check to pay for it, no floor planning or financing, just like his dad used to do dating back to the Depression days on the late '20's and early '30's.  He would keep the vehicles at his dealership for up to two years, and if it didn't sell, he'd drive it out to his farm, and park it!  He'd only have one or two "stock" vehicles for sale on his dealership lot, and every other one was a special order for his customers.  The ones at the farm were all special orders that the customers backed out of, for whatever reason.  While at his house for lunch one day, he gave me a tour of the place while his wife prepared the lunch.  I guess the look on my face when we turned the corner to the back side of his barn was such that he burst out laughing at me.  That's when he told me the story behind each of the vehicles there.  He said that from time to time, he would sell one of these "sleds" as he called them, and had to work through our regional office in suburban Chicago to make sure that the warranty was honored.  The last I heard is that around 1976, lightning struck the barn setting it on fire, and destroying the old vehicles when the burning wall collapsed on them. 

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I think if this dealer is really wanting to sell this car the only place he's going to get anything near to what he's wanting would be to take it to either Barrett-Jackson in Az. or Mecum's Auction in Monterey Ca. He will have to pay a commission to the auction company but he's not getting any buyers now.  At least at these venues he would have people with the ware with all to pay the kind of money he's wanting and would be interested in the car. My own experience  with Dealers tucking away a new car goes back to when the  black and silver Corvette Indy Pace Cars came out. The Chevrolet dealership I worked at got one of the cars. The Dealer turned down offers from other Dealers that wanted to buy his car to resell at a profit or collect for themselves. The Dealer had bought a closed gas station that was across the street from the dealership and put the Corvette and another early Chevrolet that he was going to restore on the service bays and covered the windows so they couldn't be seen. I left that area in the early '80's so I have no idea what ever became of the cars. I know of a few other dealers that did much the same with these also. The Corvettes time has come and gone as far as a big payoff goes as these don't really bring much more than the original MSRP now, even those still on an MSO. I think this is happening with the GNX's now as they don't seem to bring today what they were bringing just a couple of years ago. These and many other special cars all have their day in the sun, and then the sun goes down just like their value. 

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Every time I see one of those 1978 Pace Car Corvettes at an auction on TV, I think about the story of a local guy who bought two in 1978 for $30K apiece.  Astounding price for the time - at my pay level, even a sticker price on a base level Corvette was out of range.  I believe Chevrolet built one for every dealer so that makes about 5,000 of them.  Hardly rare...

Edited by Muncie
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Most dealers hung on to those cars to create showroom traffic, when the car became "yesterday's news" they would drop the price to something reasonable.  When it was generating foot traffic, they'd ask the long dollar because if they sold it at that time, they would no longer have it to draw people in.

My older brother bought a new, two-year-old Ford Lightning pickup when the dealer didn't "need" it any more.  He got it for less than the two or three year old used ones he had been looking at.

The Buick in all likelihood would not have any kind of warranty...it was built by "old GM" which is no longer in business...

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On 1/3/2021 at 5:38 PM, Mark said:

Most dealers hung on to those cars to create showroom traffic, when the car became "yesterday's news" they would drop the price to something reasonable.  When it was generating foot traffic, they'd ask the long dollar because if they sold it at that time, they would no longer have it to draw people in.

My older brother bought a new, two-year-old Ford Lightning pickup when the dealer didn't "need" it any more.  He got it for less than the two or three year old used ones he had been looking at.

The Buick in all likelihood would not have any kind of warranty...it was built by "old GM" which is no longer in business...

Most new cars only have a 3-year/36,000 mile warranty today - whichever comes first - so any warranty would be whatever the dealer decided to offer to the buyer.  When I was shopping for a new '87 GM car, it was a 5-year/50,000 mile warranty, then was later extended to 6-year/60,000 miles.  I considered the GN, but it didn't come with a full set of gauges (only fuel, tach, turbo boost), so I ordered an El Camino instead.  The GNX came with a full set of Stewart-Warner gauges.

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