All Entries Tagged With: "New York Magazine"
ChryCo Power: March Sale Madness
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG TIME
NEW YORK magazine that cosmo swilling socialite of gossip rags, reported recently in a brilliant new series called The Downturnaround (highlighting how things aren’t actually that bad when you really look at it) that the same Chrysler that has 30 days to partner up with Fiat or die moved 101,001 cars and trucks in March.
“If a company like Chrysler still moved 100,000 cars in a single month during the Worst Recession Since the Great Depression™, well…
The Paradox of Thrift
Two members of the press at work…
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG The Flagellants by Pieter van Laer
THERE’S a lot of loathing of self and others happening in the media at present.
I’ll explain how this pertains to cars in a sec…
Much of their vitriol has to do with money; the lack of it for some; the depraved squandering of it for others. For most magazines and newspapers and their salaried staff, it’s definitely the former.
Average advertising revenues fell faster in 2008 than Chrysler’s December numbers which means that executives at every business that makes dough by printing hardcopy – from the New York Times to Vogue to Car & Driver - are casting people off left and right. And like any good ship captains, these corporate heads make sure that they’re the absolute last to leave a sinking ship.
So understanding that the fourth estate is lacking a foreseeable future, what entitles you or anyone else to have one, either?
Wall Street Trembles But Car Dealers Were Already Quaking
IMG by Robert Madeira
By Gunnar Heinrich
IT’S one of those funny constant that we can come to expect.
Such is this tidal nature that when there are boom periods – the economy is up; life’s good and people are well catered to by material amenities.
Like de luxe automobiles.
The tide recedes, as it must, and it goes without saying that the converse proves to be quite true.
Wall Street has been having weeks so rough that it’s insular turmoils have spilled over like acrid battery acid onto Main Streets this world round.
And while business folk and the idle rich in Shanghai or Dubai are less apt to feel the pain as those in New York or London, it’ll be interesting to note just what kind of hit luxury and exotic car makers and their dealer networks take in their global earnings in the wake of this financial meltdown.
Consider the following snippet from an explanatory article CNBC’s Jim Cramer wrote for New York Magazine as food for heartburn.
“For two-plus decades, New Yorkers have been living in a Wall Street–dominated world. Ushered in by Michael Milken and Henry Kravis, popularized by Oliver Stone and Tom Wolfe, and carried to its decadent extreme by hedge-funders with 32,000-square-foot Greenwich mansions and Gulfstreams at every airstrip, it was an era that dramatically changed New York.
I don’t care what the stock market did late last week or what it does in the next few days. That age, the Master of the Universe Era, is over. Too many people were too badly burned by taking too much risk to repeat that trick again. That has practical implications for everything from private schools, Range Rover dealerships, and Sotheby’s auctions to SAT tutors, newsstand operators, and shoeshine guys.”
Trouble is, the Range Rover (and BMW and Cadillac and Lexus and…) dealers were already feeling the pain before the $#!& hit the fan.
[The New York Article In Full: The Great Shakeout]
NY Mag Ponders The Painful > What If You Invested In A M.Y. 1998 750iL?
An icon, depreciated.
Luxury sedans just don’t get much better than BMW’s E38 generation 7-Series. In that line, Dingolfing produced one of the best cars the world has ever known.
Behind the wheel, the predecessor 7 gave you the impression that Hollywood’s leading ladies are more forthcoming about their weight. A large and heavy three box sedan built for comfort just had no business performing with such exacting precision.
And yet, time has its way with value.
New York magazine’s Jhoanna Robledo posted an article recently that posed the rhetorical question what investing $100,000 in 1998 would’ve yielded today.
Among the examples, $99,995 in Apple stock would have yielded nearly $2 million. A townhouse in Harlen for 80 large back then would today bring home $800K at least, “And that’s if it’s still a wreck,” writes Robledo.
But some other investments, would not have faired so well.
$92,100 for a M.Y. 1998 750iL might get you $12K in resale with no miles.
As painful as that depreciation seems, we must remember that in general automobiles – unless they come adorned with rearing elephant hood emblems – serve as dubious investment vehicles (no pun intended… ok maybe a little).
Robledo acknowledges this somewhat, “You’d have held more value if you’d bought a car that is perpetually coveted, like a Ferrari, but a yard-high Italian two-seater isn’t exactly built for our potholes.”
So, what is the rate of depreciation on a Ferrari from ’98, anyway? Don’t ask Kelly…
Back then, one tutto rosso M.Y. 1998 Ferrari F355 Berlinetta F1 retailed for $130,995 (before option$) according to MSN autos. Al giorno, it’s $92,900 on Hemmings.
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