Let's keep an open mind on this...
I saw an on line ad in cars.com from a used car dealer, Paul Sevag Motors, in West Chester, PA. He was selling a 2009 R/T with $17,216 miles for $23,345. In the ad, he stated that the Challenger has "SRT trim." I am not sure if he added the badges and hood stripes or if that is how he purchased it. Either way, no one should be up-badging. Here are two of the photos that accompanied the ad.
If I bought this car, the first thing that I would do would be to replace the SRT badges with R/T badges. You may be able to fool the general public with the SRT badges, but anyone with MOPAR knowledge would laugh and consider the driver a poser.
While buying and reselling up-badged Challengers might seem abhorrent to those of us who have emotional crutches like honesty, fairness, and integrity, I can see the money-making potential such a tactic has for a used-car salesman who is a card-carrying member of the ABC club (
Always Be Closing!) and unburdened by useless character traits such as morality and empathy.
Just think about it...the previous owner of that up-badged Challenger brought the car in to sell or use as a trade-in, expecting to get at least whatever the R/T version would be worth (but secretly hoping he can talk his way into getting something close to the SRT value). But seeing as the car is NOT an R/T anymore (it's a modded version, and an unpopular mod at that) and never was an SRT model, he will be lucky if the used-car guy gives him SXT Plus money for it.
Now, the used-car guy takes that same car and puts it up for sale for a price which is more than an R/T but not quite what an SRT would bring, basically using the same logic as the previous owner and which he flatly rejected during the negotiation of purchase price. It's surely a long-shot for him to get that inflated price for the car, but he'll certainly do his best and
TRY to get it, you can be sure.
But even if the odds of getting the higher price are low, there's no downside (in fact, there's only upside!) in trying to sell it for the inflated price, right?
Try to talk all potential buyers into paying the "
more than a R/T but less than a SRT" price, but take let them talk him down to normal price if they stand their ground. So the worst that can happen is he'll make the standard profit from the sale, but then every once in a while, he'll find a
n00b who'll buy it at inflated price, and BLAMMO! The used-car guy just doubled (or more!) his profit on the sale, all without having to do any extra work beyond what he normally does, and...AND, no one got hurt!
Well, that's not quite true...we know there were some casualties in there somewhere between the original owner and the new one and the salesman and such...but hey, it certainly wasn't the salesman, he got PAID and is about to pay it forward by making it rain at the local strip club (
Lap-dances are BOGO every Wednesday at The Jiggly Room after all, and besides, what is he, a robot??? Someone without any feelings, lusts, or desires?!?)
It's a pretty cool racket that our mythical used-car salesman has going in this scenario, very lucrative indeed. He's managed to pay off his gambling debts and finally pay off his ex-wife's lawyers' bills. He's almost back to being on top!!
That is, until some know-it-all guy who belongs to an online car forum (ChargerTalk.com I think?) comes along and ruins it all for him (that's YOU,
@Cuda340, in this hypothetical scennario
). And now he's back to working 2 shifts and eating bologna for lunch every day.
How can you be party to such character assasination like that,
@Cuda340, how indeed...
For shame...
FOR SHAME!!!
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Also, has anyone called up Dodge to confirm this isn't a one-of-a-kind, special edition, or possibly even early prototype that is
SUPPOSED to be up-badged like that?
I admit that is unlikely, but not impossible...and if it
is a one-of-a-kind car straight from Dodge somehow, well than that's an awfully good price on it, wouldn't you agree??
