Bill Tanner, our fictional dealer in 2030 has gone and acquired himself a new franchise. It’s all online too, something that’s got him both excited and scared at the same time
I did it. Lori lost her mind, of course, but I’m just not ready to retire. Retire and what? Play golf all day? Sit around and grow bitter like that putz next door? If I were home all day, it wouldn’t be long before she’d be pushing me out the door anyway, so I did it. I bought a new franchise.
Tanner Motors is doing its thing now. It barely needs me at all. Don’t get me wrong — the last couple of years have been challenging. It feels like what was supposed to be a “transition period” turned into a revolution. I mean, one minute I’m standing in the middle of a huge showroom and the next I’m in this tiny shop with a Sim and a hologram. I despaired about putting together the right sales staff, too. Of the few who made it through the changes, only one remains, and the first few newbies were more concerned with the technology than the people. Jennifer might have dragged her heels a bit in the beginning but now she’s really stepping up to the plate. Things are going pretty smoothly now and if I’m honest, she’s turning into a damn good GM.
Tanner Motors is going to be OK. I’ll be around still, but this new franchise has got me more excited about the business than I have been for years. A little scared, frankly.
And when I mean new, it’s just that — all-new — no trace of the old way anywhere. Tanner Motors still has a storefront, small as it is. It’s still a place customers can visit, have a coffee, get to know us, and put their butts in a chair.
Custom market
Tanner Luna is strictly online. Yeah, I know, I’ve spent a lot of time waxing lyrical about the good ol’ days and swearing I’d never do the all-online thing, but it turns out I’m full of it. I don’t want to roll up and die, and if you don’t want to roll up and die, you have to live in the present. A minute ahead of the present if you can manage it. Luna makes good cars, and I’m interested to see where this goes. I mean, this is the first car company in history founded by women, and that alone is enough to be polarizing. I didn’t think I’d ever see cars politicized as much as these, but things have simmered down a lot since they first hit the market eight years ago. They just kept quiet and made good cars, and I respect that, no matter who you are. Their buyers are almost 30 per cent men now.
They’re the first completely customizable cars, too, with a couple of patents that are slowing down the big players long enough to give Luna the custom market to themselves for now. You really have to give kudos to their design team. The way they almost snap together, you’d think they’d look like a giant Kinder Surprise, but except for a couple of details in the crossover lineup, I think the components are smart-looking and it doesn’t seem to matter how you put them together.
When you think that anybody can just order these taillights and that grille, this spoiler and that instrument cluster, it’s a miracle that they don’t all look like nightmares on wheels, but they don’t. I’m not sure what it’ll be like without the excitement of all-new models every few years. Seems like there’s something new all the time. The number of paint colours alone is ridiculous. Clients just add and subtract right online, a dollop of magenta, a hint of cyan, a little less yellow, and bingo! Total custom colours! There are enough Lunas out there now that they’re actually starting to liven up the roads a little. For some reason however, people still seem to love silver the best.
Trying it out
The day I went in for my final meeting, they were launching a new platform for pickups. Seems a little premature, frankly, but I’m looking forward to being a part of building that segment. I guess that’s why they wanted me in the family. For an urban dealership, we’ve always done well with trucks.
I got Lori to order one, and I bought one for Ethan and Dylan too. Lori and Ethan loved it. The boys came over one night, and they sat at the dining room table, putting together their cars. Lori started with the hatchback and Ethan, to no one’s surprise, got a roadster. Dylan was less enthusiastic. He hung around for a little while, then he went on home to do his ordering in private. He’s got enough of his old man in him that he wasn’t too keen on the totally online thing, but he ended up with a crossover he really likes.
There were a couple of interior appointments he wasn’t crazy about, but he’d bought the aesthetics insurance so he just called them and they sent someone the next day to pick it up. A couple of weeks later, it was back with a new centre console and a couple of different gauges.
Lori must have had a couple of glasses too many — she got a phone call a few days later confirming her choices, and sure enough, she made more than a few changes. Good customer service feature, those phone calls. I bet she wasn’t the first person to get a little tipsy before ordering. Ethan’s was bang-on.
He actually got a call the other day from one of the autophile sites asking if they could profile it. Seems like everybody knows your business these days.
I liked the dealer liaison I dealt with, too. Smart cookie, and she seemed to really get the business. You’d be surprised how often that’s not the case. I hope she’s wrong about sponsorship being here to stay. I just think it’s tacky.
She knows they have problems in service, and she’s smart enough to know they don’t have the person yet who can fix it. With the number of cars they’ve got on the road now, it makes sense to have a couple of extra service lots in the city, so they can turn around the small stuff in a few hours, and I’m actually hoping to get my hands on one of those later in the year.
Lori’s going to kill me.
Illustration by © Christiane Beauregard
