disposals adverts

[Mike K]

Originally Posted by Lang

Mike

All dealer vehicles were given a "pegged" price up until the late 40's.

This was an attempt to prevent price gauging in a market with shortage of supply and high demand.

Of course a huge black market existed and many of Australia's most famous car dealers made their fortune during this period. They quite openly advertised cars at their set price but you had little chance of getting it unless you arrived with a brown paper bag!

Private owners/sellers were much less restricted.

Lang

I will have a look at the 1946-48 classifieds and see what prices people ( not dealers ) were asking for Jeeps. Should be interesting !

The early disposal Jeeps , you would have a better chance of getting a Jeep in unmolested condition. With the later disposal sales in the late 50's and early 60's , by then most of the WW2 Jeeps would have been through a major rebuild in army workshops, with engine , chassis swaps etc.

One Jeep wreck I had , the Jeep was a faded blue/grey with "RAAF" and the RAAF reg number on the bonnet ( still have the number somewhere if anyone's interested. ) Post war use in the RAAF .

A 1941 Willys slat grill I purchased in Albury in 1976 , DOD 31st Dec. 41 . This Jeep had a white US star and USA reg blue number on the bonnet under many layers of green . Must have been transferd over the the Aust. army / who knows ?

[Lang]

Mike

There is a whole string of similar stories in papers around Australia in 1946.

You can see the people are paying double the fixed price.

In most of these stories the buyers are fully aware of the fixed price (readily available for every car under 10 years old) but pretend to be duped by the dealer and report him hoping to get half their money back.

This was one of the reasons the scheme stopped quickly because of the scammers (reverse to normal because the buyer is the scammer). They get a rare car delivered immediately instead of waiting months by paying the black market rate then stab the dealer in the back.

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/ar...eTo=1946-12-31

Lang

[Mike K]

Most of that black market dealing would have been city based . In a rural community, like those smaller regional towns in the Jeep adverts , if a car dealer was taking under the counter payments, he would have been found out and suffer the bad feelings of the local population. Gossip and jealousy abounds in small towns , I know this from experience . " Hey so you got a Jeep from so and so , paid more than the pegged price " before you know it everybody in the town knows what went on . Local car dealer is in the sh*t .

[Lang]

Mike

I think you will find the black market existed everywhere.

The pegged price was so far from the supply and demand forces that everyone accepted they were going to pay more.

Lang

[Mike K]

Lang, at least we are providing some entertainment for the masses of readers here on MLU

The trove site is down ATM

[Mike K]

Dodge advert and White scout cars

[Mike K]

carrier.......................