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From: cbd@ihu1e.UUCP (Carl Deitrick)
Newsgroups: net.auto
Subject: Auto "allocation"?
Message-ID: <258@ihu1e.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 23-May-84 16:04:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihu1e.258
Posted: Wed May 23 16:04:45 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 26-May-84 12:31:02 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 21

I tagged along when a friend of mine went shopping for a new van.  He's looking
for something mid-way between a stripped cargo van and a fully-converted
rolling lounge.  We stopped at a dealer who happened to have ~25 of the latter
on his lot.  My friend balked at the $20K price and asked if they had any
that were not fully converted.  The salesman said they didn't and offered the
opinion that such were not available even through a special order.  The reason
he gave was that his "allocation" had gone to the companies that do the
conversions.  Joe and I thought this was a typical horsesh*t story a car
salesman would use to get you to buy the loaded model - "you can't get
anything except what I have here, so you might as well buy from me."

Does anyone out there in net-land know about this "allocation" business?
Is it for real?  Who sets these allocations?  How does a dealer get "allocated"
a given number of vehicles?  If this allocation business is for real, isn't it
considered restraint of trade or some such? (sorry about this one.  I'm by
no means a lawyer.)  Setting an allocation seems like an awfully arrogant
thing for an auto maker to do, especially when Detroit is just recovering
from a brush with death, so could this all be a symptom of terminal 
complacency?
					Carl Deitrick
					ihu1e!cbd