Confusingly, he reused the first part of the title from an article posted here [0] last year. This is newer.

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40345090

In the 1970s I remember my dad getting the run around from American car dealers when he wanted to buy an economy car. By the mid 2010s I noticed that Japanese car dealers were playing the same games. [1] When I tried to buy a Honda Fit the dealer didn't have any new ones available -- supposedly the factory that made them washed out in a flood but they had 50+ SUVs sitting in a row made in the same factory that nobody wanted to buy, so I settled for a used one at a new car price that had only been on the lot for about 18 hours.

Honda discontinued the Fit citing poor sales. Maybe they weren't selling them in Texas, but around Ithaca the Honda Fit is the ideal getaway car because if you were seen driving away from the scene of the crime you could always say it was one of the other Fits. It's a running gag that you will park your Fit at the supermarket and somebody else will park another Fit that's the same color right next to you.

Personally it is not sedans that I miss but compact hatchbacks. The Fit has a lot of the utility of an SUV in that it is easy to stuff something big in the back (like 10 bales of sawdust for the farm) despite it being a small car that is easy to handle, economical to buy and economical on gas.

[1] Note that the dealers are frequently the same people. One family owns all the new car dealerships in the Ithaca area. Also "Japanese" cars are frequently made in factories in the US and Mexico.

> When I tried to buy a Honda Fit the dealer didn't have any new ones available -- supposedly the factory that made them washed out in a flood but they had 50+ SUVs sitting in a row made in the same factory that nobody wanted to buy, so I settled for a used one at a new car price that had only been on the lot for about 18 hours.

And this is why they play this game. You bought what they wanted you to buy. Instead you should have just said "no thanks" and started to walk out. Suddenly a Fit would have been available on some other lot and they could get it to you tomorrow.