Did Buick Make 'Sales Bank' Cars?

[72Buickguy]

In the 70's did Buick make cars in a sales bank, like Mopar did? Or did every car they produced have to be ordered from a dealer or individual buyer? Did Buick decide what the dealer received for his lot inventory, or did he get to pick the colors and options? The reason I ask is that the Daily Car Report for my 72 Riv shows some cars, about 1/3 of the total to be "Retail Orders".

[GMPARTSMAN]

I think Chrysler was the only one at that time to do the sales bank system. I remember that Chrysler used to lease storage space in metro Detroit to store these untill they could sell them, the Michigan State Fairgrounds being one of the places they stored them.

From all the time I spent working in GM dealerships, I do not recall ever hearing that they did this in any of the divisions. I remember reading a newspaper article sometime in the late 70's about Chrysler's system, and how innefecient and expensive it was to maintain.

[NTX5467]

I concur that Chrysler was probably the only manufacturer that had "Sales Bank" cars. What this allowed them to do was keep a steady supply of vehicles in popular colors, models, and options. Some other things slipped through the system too, as I understand it. A good plan, but wasn't administered very well in some times. Too many of one kind of car in the sales bank? Deal time to the dealers. Too many cars at the end of the model year? Deal time to the dealers. People that were around back then talk of 1/2 off of invoice to the dealer if they'd take some of them. Pluses and minuses, depending on which side of the transport truck you were on. Ended up costing the corporation money in lost profits in a time they needed all they could get, I suppose.

Typically, there were "stock inventory/Retail" orders, "special" orders, "fleet" orders, demonstrator orders, and maybe the famous Central Office Processing Order (COPO) too. There could also be orders that were tied to trips and other perks for the dealers too. As independent business entities, the dealer and their operatives typically decided what they had on the lot. The divisional District Sales Manager (new car sales rep) might exert some influence in some cases and highly recommend certain option packages or individual options on particular models (for various reasons) and make sure that what they were ordering could be "dealer trade material" (where dealers swap/purchase vehicles from each other in order to satisfy a customer's request) so they might not have some unpopular vehicles left over at the end of the model year. Back then, there were many individual options that were not packaged as they are in more recent times.

Through the model year, there can be times when certain options, colors, and such might be on "Stop" for certain periods of time, but would return at a later date. When yellow disappeared from the available colors for a few years, it was due to the yellow pigments in the paint having high amounts of lead in it, for example. Now, some models might be restricted due to Federal fuel economy issues.

The manufacturer would predict the sales volume of each item and model and purchase supplies accordingly. Some times they missed (too much or too little) and some times they didn't miss their predictions. Some dealers might have listened to their sales rep while others had a better feel for their clientel and others were much more hit or miss in what they had on the lot--or any combination thereof.

One of my friends in a Chrysler dealership mentioned that in order to get one Crossfire, they had to agree to about 50 Neons. Not to mention having a high CSI index too, in all probability. There are still some games just as there were back then, it appears.

Enjoy!

NTX5467

[Guest brh]

My 65 was ordered through Sears Roebuck and Co. on an employee progam Sears had I have all the papers and I believe it was termed a Retail order even though it was ordered custom. I know of two other Buicks ordered the same way 56 Special and a 66 Skylark.