|
|
|
 Business News | March 2008 
Import Limit Makes '98 F-150 Mexico's Most-Wanted Truck
 Allan Turner - Houston Chronicle
go to original
| | '98 F-150: Prices on all decade-old models expected to soar in wake of new law. | | |
Ah, the 1998 Ford F-150. It would take a Lord Byron in grease-stained overalls to do it justice.
Remember its rumbling engine, color-keyed steering column and leather-wrapped steering wheel? Remember how shiny silver metallic paint bumped the road-sworn silver frost, and how critics praised its styling, even if its exterior was flawed by too many dips and swoops?
Now sing all those praises in Spanish.
As Mexico on Monday limited used-car imports from the U.S. to those made in 1998, the ever-popular F-150 seemed poised to become one of the most-coveted used vehicles in Mexico. Prices for the truck — and for all other 1998 models — were expected to soar.
"The prices we'd be asking for them retail is what we're going to be paying wholesale," said Luis Esparza, sales manager for H.E.D. Sales Co., a Houston Heights used-car dealer. "You can throw the Blue Book away."
Bernardo Garcia, at Caribbean Auto Sales, a cash-only Shepherd Drive dealer, said a 1998 extended cab F-150 in good condition previously might have sold for $5,000 at his lot. Now, it's likely that the price may jump $500 to $700.
Garcia said his business is heavily patronized by Mexican buyers — dealers buying for resale as well as families acquiring a vehicle for personal use.
Truck price precedent set
Although few would-be car buyers braved Monday's nasty weather to visit used-car lots, the first months of the year typically are the busiest, dealers said. Garcia said late winter typically brings 15 to 18 used-car dealers from Mexico to his lot each month. Family car sales are boosted by windfall income tax refunds.
F-150s and Chevrolet Silverados are the most sought-after vehicles.
The changes in Mexico's import law were urged by the Mexican Association of Automobile Distributors, which protested that cars newer or older than 10 years undercut their new-car sales. Before Monday, Mexican motorists and dealers were allowed to import vehicles that were 10-15 years old.
The flood of cars on the older end of that spectrum, the group argued, threatened to turn Mexico into "the world's biggest automotive garbage dump."
Despite the import window's narrowing to 1998 models, Heights-area dealers generally shrugged off the change. "This isn't anything new," said Esparza, a 20-year veteran of the car sales business.
"In the mid- to late-1980s, they actually set a precedent for value for trucks," he said. "So high was the demand that trucks that had been selling for $3,500 were going for upward to $5,500. Chevy trucks, mainly. The prices never went down."
Roddy McMichaels, owner of the nearby Longhorn Motor Co., said he seldom has sold cars or trucks destined for Mexico.
"All the time, these guys want to buy them too cheap," he said. "You'll see them on U.S. 59 hauling two or three of them down to Mexico. They're in such bad shape. Pickups with 400,000 miles that they buy for $300. They take them down where labor and parts are cheap and fix them up."
allan.turner(at)chron.com |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us