John Ulrich

Yes! If I wanted the mass market approach they have that now. For $7.00 you can take the plant tour in a group now. The R8C supplies you with a personal guide for the day. If you had to share your guide with say 5 other buyers to go over your car and help you setup the functions where's the exclusivity there? The guide would stand in the parking lot with a bull horn and shout instructions to everyone.
You are assuming that for a reduced cost that you will still get one on one service?

It appears they have capacity and employees for 7-8 deliveries a day. In marketing you price your product high enough to fill your capacity but not low enough to where you are turning too many people away.
If they were failing to attract enough people at $995 they would lower their price. If they were turning people away......raise the price to $1,200.
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laborsmith

Earlier in this thread a poster asked when the change took place. I admit I can not recall but believe in the mid 1970's. Also, and this could be wrong, but I am thinking some of the American companies started doing it (at the mild requests of dealers located thousands of miles from assembly plants who believed they were losing sales for no other reason than the price difference) before there was a law.

Now someone who knows for sure might be tempted to post.

Laborsmith

Michael A

I don't know who you are talking about, but there is no law that says what GM has to do with the Destination Charge after they get the money. They could easily pay for the extremely low cost to get the car a 1/2 mile down the road to the museum, and then give the balance to the museum itself. Now the museum delivery is reasonable, and no extra charge.

Problem solved.

Michael

C7 BOB

I found this on ask.com:

"Why do we still have the destination charge?"

"Because the government mandates it. Back before the early 80s destination charges differed and car dealers played shady game (shocking I know) where they'd make tons of money by setting their own destination charges of whatever they wanted and not having it in the price. The government then decided it would be a requirement that the dealers list a destination charge separate from the price for all new cars clearly on the window sticker. All fine until sometime in the 80s the manufacturers went to a combined standardized destination charge (aka they averaged their shipping costs and set the charge based on model, not location). However, the government never reacted to this so the destination charge is still required by law even though it's the same everywhere in CONUS."

This is about the time I thought it changed, and I found a window sticker for a 1976 Toyota that I bought new. The port of entry was San Francisco. The dealer was just south of there, and the "inland freight and handling" was $54.75. So, I'm pretty sure the standardized shipping charge started in the early 80's.

Glen e

It has to be standardized...every dealer in the country has to have the same cost of sale per vehicle. It is no more complicated than this. It's the way retail vehicle distribution works....end of story.

2CRUZIN

Absolutely agree. I am not sure why this is so hard to comprehend.

RYTOCOR

It’s a union agreement!


iQUOTE=cg02175;1586672525]I think it is really stupid for GM to charge customers the $995 destination fee if you are picking the car up at the museum in Bowling Green.

If you want to pick up a corvette at the museum you still have to pay the $995 destination fee on top of the $995 museum delivery fee.

Anyone else think this makes no sense? Maybe another way for GM to squeeze out another $1,000[/QUOTE]

Vetteman Jack

Many threads have covered this subject. Yes, you pay both when you take museum delivery.