As Ford Authority previously reported, Blue Oval CEO Jim Farley isn’t just a big-time automotive executive and part-time racer – he’s also an active participant at online collector car auction sites like Bring a Trailer. However, Farley isn’t exactly good at bidding on vehicles in this type of format, per his own admission, as he has thus far bid on a total of 32 different vehicles listed for sale at that site, and yet, has only actually won one of them – a 1972 DeTomaso Pantera, which he secured for $121,000 back in June 2024. As it turns out, Farley also uses these sites for a very different reason, too.
“It’s interesting to see…my dealers are so upset at BaT because the first thing I do when they charge over sticker price is, I go on BaT and start sending the dealer because I know what dealer lives in which area so I’ll just go on BaT oh, okay that’s 10 grand over stickers – that’s again the same dealer in South Carolina trying to do this and then I send it to my salespeople and people are like ‘could you stop sending us BaT screenshots?’ Like no, I’m not going to,” Farley said during a recent appearance on the Bring a Trailer podcast.
This is a rather interesting admission after Ford – and other automakers – came under fire during the pandemic, a time when supply chain issues caused massive new vehicle inventory shortages. As a result, many dealers were adding large markups to the sticker prices of new models that were on lots, much to the dismay of folks like Farley, not to mention consumers who were simply looking to purchase a new vehicle at MSRP.
Back in May 2023, Farley admitted that he was keeping an eye on Ford F-150 Lightning auctions as a way to monitor prices of that EV pickup, too – not to mention folks that were flipping that model for a profit previously.
Comments
Don’t have to worry about anyone flipping a Ford EV on Bring a Trailer now.
Don’t believe a word from his mouth. No CEO is honest to the public. When the first ev from Ford debuted markups were up to $15000 at some dealers. I found a local dealer to sell at MSRP on a 2021 mach e GT Performance fully optioned $69500 minus full tax credit cost me $62000. Great muscle ev for sure and a keeper. 480hp 634 torque high quality parts and every ice button plus voice commands. Hope a trimotor 4 door mach e is developed. I will buy it now.
No one even wants to pay MSRP that number is so ridiculously high these days, I only buy if 10k less than MSRP, or buy used cause the first owner just lost 20k value when he drove off the lot, ha