This Is the Hardest Car to Buy in America

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated May 31, 12:02PM EDT · Published May 28, 2:25PM EDT

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This Is the Hardest Car to Buy in America — © teddyleung / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

The car industry has gone through a tremendous transformation in the past three years. And, this is not about electric or self-driving cars.

For a period after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, most dealerships were not open at all. Inventory built up. Manufacturers developed backlogs. This changed suddenly. Pent-up demand caused a surge in buying once dealers reopened. Simultaneously, there was a tremendous shortage of the chips used in vehicle electronics systems. Some manufacturers had to shutter assembly lines. Many dealers had partially empty lots.

The average age of the car on the road topped 12 years in 2021. It was a sign of two things. First, cars have been better made in the last decade. Second, the price of new and used cars soared due to shortages. The prices have stayed high. For many Americans, it makes sense to simply keep the cars they own and repair them as necessary.

One of the results of the national car shortage is that some car models are not in stock at all. When dealers do get these popular cars, they are off the lots and into owners’ hands in a matter of days. And, in some cases, they are back-ordered for months. Many dealers have started to change more than the car companies recommend (the manufacturer’s suggested retail price or MSRP). This has angered several large manufacturers, and they have threatened to punish these dealers.

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Up until two years ago, cars were usually on dealer lots for two or three months before they were sold. Today, the figure has dropped below a month for some models. Among a few, the figure is lower than 10 days. Edmunds made an analysis of this and recently published “You’ll Have a Hard Time Finding These Cars on a Dealer Lot.” Each of the cars on this list stays on dealer lots for less than 10 days. Edmunds also reported on how much of a premium each model has commanded over MSRP.

The car that spends the least time on dealer lots is the Subaru WRX. Its days on lot only average 6.76. And, Subaru dealers have an average mark up of $595 for the WRX.

The WRX is Subaru’s fast sports sedan. Like every Subaru, it has four-wheel drive. The base model has a price of $29,605. The highest price model is the GT which carries a price of $42,395. The car has often been described as extremely affordable, fast, and maneuverable.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.