Editorial: Are We Going to See the Get-it-While-it-Lasts Car Sales?

by Wallace Wyss –

Now that I’ve seen the publicity around the Ferrari Purosangue SUV, extolling the fact it has a V12, and other stories in car magazines about “the last internal combustion engine from so-and-so” I am wondering, are we going to see a golden era for buying that dream sports car because, all the pointers indicate, they won’t make cars like that any more?

I am wary of these “Last of” pitches. Think of the “false” supposition of when Cadillac made the ’76 Eldorado convertible, some enthusiasts bought them thinking GM wouldn’t make convertibles anymore. Some die-hards held onto them for decades, and now they realize they didn’t appreciate that much.

Ghia Cadillac – photo by Mike Gulett

Because GM reversed itself and made convertibles again. They had gone that anti-convertible route thinking “We can’t make rollover protection good enough so we might as well not make convertibles,” the supposition was that the ragtops of the mid-to-late ’70s would be all she wrote.

But I am wary, stung once (well, I didn’t keep those convertibles I owned, but still miss them) of any “Get-it-while-it-lasts” pitch because I’ve seen this used before.

I think as the 2020 California threat of “no new pure ICE cars in 2030 and beyond” gets closer a lot of automakers will still offer hybrids–internal combustion plus electric motor as help-mate, and thus qualify for various benefits, such as going in the green car lane or whatever it’s called, discounts, rebates, tax benefits, etc.

I haven’t heard if hybrids are an exception to this ban. And Ferrari, which already has hybrids, will schedule more of them in new models. Now with the present ones, you can’t cruise on electric only for very far a distance, but that might improve. At least the ability to switch to pure electric ought to be recognized by automakers who are issuing these bans in areas called “Exclusionary Zones” that are popping up in England.

But get ready for the Big Sales Pitch, the “last-of-this” and the “last-of-that.” And car auctions in the late 2020s will just go crazy when they roll across the stage the Last Ferrari Pure ICE V12 for sale. It’s like buying the last basketball jersey worn by some famous illuminary, (sometimes those go for $25,000 or so.)

I’ll admit there’s a certain nostalgia associated with The Last of Anything but I’m a little wary as laws have a way of changing.

What say you?

Let us know what you think in the Comments.

THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss is a co-host of Autotalk, a radio show on cars broadcast from KUCR FM Riverside (88.3) each Thursday.