How to Buy a Car

Un artículo de 1954, Cómo Comprar un Auto (How to Buy a Car) de la revista Esquire. Interesante…

Let your friends and neighbors –or the chap next to you in the bar –discover that you have any connection whatsoever with the automobile business and your number is up. They´ll want you to diagnose noises they can´t describe and to hear about that trouble they had with the Dort back in 1924. Their favorite question, though, and they´ll call long distance to ask it, is “What car should I buy?”

Ninety per cent of them aren´t even thinking of buying a car. Or you suggest a secondhand Chevrolet and they balk at the price. A week later they turn up in a new Lincoln.

It would seem that, in a country where we spend every fifth retail dollar on cars, we´d have a pretty fair idea of what we wanted in an automobile, but it just ain´t so. Too many of us spend a week trying to decide on buying a ten-dollar hat, then let a car salesman (who sold pretzels until last Thursday) sell us three thousand dollars´ worth of car in twenty minutes.

There just isn´t any one answer to this “What car should I buy?” question. If there were there´d be just one car make left out of the 2300 brands built at one time or another in this country. Since, however, there are still twenty-two American makes around, plus a wide selection of imported models, there´s a big extra dividend in satisfaction for the prospective buyer who sets out, systematically, to discover which car is best-suited to his pocketbook, his local conditions and his ego.

Joe Camshaft has a system of his own. Joe owns a ’41 Plymouth. It´s in good shape, but his brother-in-law just bought a new Mercury, so Joe (and Joe´s wife) are discovering that everything´s wrong with the Plymouth but falling hair. Joe is especially burned by the fact that he´s suddenly going broke spending ten bucks a month keeping the old bus running.

Joe isn´t interested in systems, but he has a quick solution. He steps out and goes in hock for a new Glamoura 8. This puts him one up on the brother-in-law and one down with the finance company. No more ten a month keeping the Plymouth running. Just a teensy-weensy hundred a month in payments, plus gas, oil and Kleenex for the dashboard dispenser. Unfortunately, Joe´s little woman isn´t much of a driver and has never been able to get the Plymouth up the driveway without a knock or a scrape, but that problem is settled now. She can´t even get the Glamoura up the street. Besides, it´s far too big and too beautiful for everyday use anyway, so they save a bit of gas after all.

Of course, you and I don´t care if our brothers –in-law drive Well-Fargo coaches, so let´s see how we might go about replacing the family bus with a minimum of expense and a maximum of usefulness and pleasure. We might work out a few questions and answers as a general guide.

New or Used?

As a general –very general –rule, any new car is better than any used car. That warranty which covers the first ninety days or four thousand miles (whichever comes first) can look mighty good to a man who has just put a new radiator and a battery in a high-priced “cream puff.”

Probably the biggest and best reason for buying a new car is its newness. It feels new, it even smells new. It´s all yours and it´s always been yours. Whatever happens to it, you will know about it and there are no hidden weaknesses lying in wait for you and your pocketbook. There is great satisfaction in taking delivery of your own new car.

This is as good a place as any to mention the fact that there are no such things as “lemons”; there are only “lemon” dealers. There isn´t a car in production in this country that won´t give 100,000 serviceable miles with reasonable care. Also, there isn´t a car manufacturer who won´t stand behind his warranty and make good on any and all defects, even to replacing the car if that is the only remedy. The manufacturer, however, must work through his dealer and there are, unfortunately, dealers who let both owner and maker down by falling to do a thorough service job. If this owner happens to you, don´t waste money on lemons to hand on the car. Spend it on a stamp and write to the factory service manager… (From Esquire, the magazine for men. June, 1954. Price 50c)

Esquire, June 1954

Para saber

El Dort fue un automóvil fabricado por Dort Motor Car Company en Flint, Michigan, desde 1915 hasta 1924

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¿Un Plymouth del 41, un Mercury de la década del 50, un Lincoln? Algunos de estos autos están en mejores condiciones que muchos de los autos que circulan por nuestras calles hoy en día…

Dort car