Cleary you're in the wrong place then. This is a forum. An article was written about it and a discussion thread was opened. If there's nothing to discuss or question, when why is this open for discussion? I don't like to swallow whatever it's given to me.
It's not a discussion when you just want to repeat that someone's rights are being violated because they're being told they can't sell a car after multiple people have told you otherwise.
Also, I didn't sign anything, so I can question it. You should tell that to John Cena.
John Cena wouldn't be facing a lawsuit if he did, now would he?
Again, companies can rewrite their VIP programs all day long. They can't, imo, claim ownership like rights over something they have sold.
That's why I said what you think is irrelevant. At the end of the day, they
can and they
do regardless of what your opinion is.
They can be against "flipping" all they want. It's still legal. (I'm not really sure flipping is an accurate word to describe it because we're talking about a car who has been paid for full price to the company who set the price. It's not a speculative purchase where one of the parties doesn't know something about the car). Auctions are famous precisely because flippers (a lot of collector are just another type of flippers) get money out of it.
No one said flipping isn't legal to begin with. Manufacturers however, do not like it because it's profiteering off their product.
Preuninger even took a shot at 911 R “collectors” who were pissed that Porsche decided to offer a
manual transmission in the all-new GT3 because they felt it would reduce the value of their 911 R. He told them that
Porsche is an automaker, not a “hedge fund.”
Buy a GT3 for $200,000, get it back out on the market early in production, and resell for $250,000. Find the next big car and repeat. In theory, it's easy money and easy to see why manufacturers aren't fond of it. They don't build cars for others to make a quick buck on, and enthusiasts certainly don't like it b/c they get left out on that allocation.
Porsche's GT director has even said they want to see their cars used, not stashed away to be resold.
If someone buys a GT for a million dollars, how does that affect negatively the value of those cars? It may inflate it. But that doesn't affect Ford because Ford already sold those cars in the first place.
Because it negatively affects the market. It drives the values up for those who wanted the car, but were unable to get one and are now at the mercy of a flipper trying to push the market well above MSRP even though the car isn't worth that much. Other people see this and attempt the same, flooding the market, and driving values downwards. Flippers are not good for the used market.
Ferrari's system has a unique way of combating with regular models. You can flip your F430 for max profit, or you can sell it back to the dealer for a lot less (allowing them to resell it for the profit) in return for an early build slot on a new car. This helps the client build a relationship that ensures him better cars down the road quicker.
If they wanted more money they could sell it for a higher price. Or they could produce 1000 instead of 499 cars and people would pay less in case someone would try to flip a car.
There's a bottom line a manufacturer prefers to meet that covers the cost of the car and includes a profit. Producing more cars devalues the market. McLaren suffers heavily in this area because they don't cap their production which is why a lot of used McLarens are well under used Ferrari/Porsche values. Lamborghini suffers a bit as well from the Gallardo/Huracan.
This is why Dodge is ceasing Demon production after 3,000 or so units. That hasn't stopped flippers from trying rake would-be owners for double MSRP.
Ferrari did this with the F50 after the F40 was flipped, which
@Tornado touched on.
The practice of flipping became popular with the Ferrari F40, where prices were jacked up to as much as $1 million when the car came out in 1988. As a result, Ferrari dramatically cut down on the number of F50s it produced afterwards and made sure people who were buying them actually intended to hold onto them. A
Car and Driver F50 road test from 1997 sheds some light on what this was like:
So why can’t you buy an F50 outright? Well, it isn’t because all 55 of the U.S. allotment has been spoken ton. It’s because the whole passel of F50s was offered only via a two-year lease whose various articles and codicils were fashioned by Ferrari North America (FNA). Even if you possess the requisite $240,000 down payment for the lease (not to mention sales tax and luxury tax), and even if you also are sufficiently affluent to swing the 24 payments of $5600 per month, you’ll still have to summon a $150,000 final payment—again, two years down the cash-littered road—before you can truthfully refer to yourself as an F50
owner.
According to Ferrari North America, this lease-it-or-leave-it scheme is in place simply to weed out avaricious speculators.
That makes all the difference imo. One thing is suing a customer who paid for his car because he wants to sell it (from my pov the 2 year clause is simply stupid and shouldn't hold in court). Another thing is not selling a future car to that person. That avoids the flipping of the second car because that customer will never get it but doesn't avoid the first one.
You only think there's a difference because Ford has the gall to sue. The end game is still the same; car #1 got flipped, owner of car #1 will not be getting car #2 from either manufacturer.
Aston Martin is currently doing this with Valkyrie, per Andy Palmer:
I doubt they have a slot, but if they do and we identify who flipped, they lose the car. If they flip, then they never get another special.
