"That's a 2008 Explorer, Ford explorer SUV, very well-equipped power moon roof. That's a 2008 pick up truck. Just a standard XLT pickup truck. Automatic."

 

New car sales, says Esposito, are down by 43 percent from last year. With the turbulent economy, people are holding onto their cars longer--four months longer this year than last year, in fact, according to industry analysts, JD Power & Associates. Thankfully, Esposito says, used car sales at his dealership are up by almost as much as new car sales are down, a trend being reflected statewide. And it's what's staving off talk of layoffs amid industry predictions of massive dealership closings nationwide if the Big 3 automakers - Ford, Chrysler and GM - collapse. "If you look out at my yard now, there was a time a year ago, you would see as many used as many new. Now, everything you see here, that’s all up front, all this, all this, all the way down that fence line. It's all used. It's all used. We have a limited new that’s on that side, and down the ways but everything else is used."

 

Esposito says for every 20 new cars Yankee Ford sells a month, it moves about 75 used cars off the lot. Used cars now account for more than two-thirds of the dealership's inventory, as compared to just half of it last year. Billy Bromstedt, a consultant from Scarborough, took his girlfriend on a stroll around the lot to look at used cars during lunchtime today. He was still ecstatic with the $8,000 or so he paid for a 2007 Ford Focus just the day before. "Car sales are down for new cars but they're giving away the used cars. I was in a Ford Focus that I bought in Massachusetts five years ago, 150,000 miles on it. I came in, I traded to the same car but with only 20,000 miles. I get 100,000 miles warranty and I'm paying less money."

 

Prices are so good that customers are even starting to take another look at SUV's. Yes, SUV's--the gas-guzzling vehicles that Esposito says were glutting the market after gas prices went up. "I just bought a 2006 Mercury Mountaineer and I actually traded in a 2008 Saturn Astro which is a little hatchback." Kelly Gunn, a Portland event planner, says she never would have dreamed of being able to afford an SUV with three rows of heated leather seats and a DVD player. With her trade in, she says she needed to finance only $19,000. "The Mountaineer definitely was a great discount. I asked, and I even looked on line at work here, too. The brand new '06 Mountaineer that I got with all those bells and whistles was upwards of $37,000 to $40,000. There were tons of them that were ’06 that maybe didn't have quite as many bells and whistles, you know it didn’t have the DVD player, and they were selling them there for $16,000.  And they’re all the same thing they were all in great condition, maybe 30,000 miles."

 

But, even in this economy, there are still some people who are only in the market for a new car. "You can't have downtime, you can't have breakdowns." Joe McNeely, owner of Cutter's Edge lawn maintenance out of Windham, came in to pick a new Ford pickup truck. With winter approaching, he wanted to make sure he had a truck that could stand up to the rigors of snowplowing. "This has a five-year, 60,000-mile warranty on it. For the next five years, we don’t have to worry about nothing, we just have to make the vehicle payment every month."

 

As Thanksgiving break comes up, the dealership is hoping to rein in customers through the 0 percent financing that Ford is offering on new cars, and rebates of several thousand dollars. But Esposito says they're still banking on the used cars.