Quote:
Originally Posted by rice_classic
I would argue otherwise but unfortunately neither one of us can know if we're right or wrong because GM/Ford won't delineate between fleet and non fleet. .
|
CAUTION: Pure speculation ahead using suspect data from the Internet!
True I suppose, but all those rentals do eventually end up in private hands, normally in less than 12 months to 24 months, so I'm not sure how much it matters between fleet and non-fleet from an original sales prospective. If anything the resale of low mileage fleet cars hurts the sale of new cars. I would buy a fleet car over a new car, and have done that in the past.
Here's what we can do to tell how much of the fleet it is. Hertz Sales lists 9,603 cars for sale within 500 miles of my location (that is the widest it lets you go). That does cover some of the larger markets where Hertz rents these types of cars though (Atlanta/Florida)
Of those 9,603 cars 9 are Camaros and 28 are Mustangs, including 1 Penske Mustang.
So, at least today, Camaros represent 0.09% of the Hertz retiring fleet in my area and Mustangs represent 0.29%. I would hazard to guess, and that is all it is, that Mustangs are higher because they want to move to the new model.
Hertz does use a combination of sales and returns so I suppose it could be that they return more pony cars to the manufacturers then they sell.
But, on the surface at least, it would appear the cars represent a pretty small part of the 350,000 cars that Hertz buys in a year. Even if my projection is off by a factor of 10 it would only be a couple thousand cars per model. Given the Camaro averaged about 7,100 sales a month for the past 12 months in the US, and Ford is about the same, I'd maintain its a pretty small percentage of all sales.