re: paint colors

["John Hertzman" <johnhertzman@domain.elided>]

Joe Elliott wrote (of Nicky Avery) "I think what he meant is dealing with the
ability of a dealer to make all the "available" colors genuinely available.
If it only comes in black, no one can complain about the lack of a silver
model on the lot.  Now I realize that my parents may not be your average car
shoppers, but - - - "

Which is why Henry Ford pursued a policy, for many years,of "Any color so long
as it is black." When the policy eventually didn't work, he added blue and
maroon, and the Chevy 6 STILL outsold the last "T"s. It is also why Porsche
tried, at one time, maintaining regional warehouses which stocked all the
basics and all the variables: each dealer was to keep one demo, write orders,
and in three days the warehouse could stick any interior package in any
exterior package and deliver it to the customer. (Don't know whether it
worked-) Some dealers did something similar on a less structured basis; the
1979 chip-chart shows twenty different paint and upholstery combinations for
the Spider, and I knew of a case where Serge Derjmanian swopped interiors on
two new Spiders to sell a twenty-first and have an oddball twenty-second left
over. Personally, I'm probably at least as picky as most, but on each of the
five new Alfas I bought I just took my pick of what the dealers had in stock.
Nice enough cars, all of them.

My guess on the logic is only a guess, but I can live with it; ARI and ARDONA
tried many different marketing ploys, and none of them worked quite as well as
somebody had hoped. Try another one - something else - anything else - - Nope.
That didn't work, either, Hey, they did try -

John H.
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