Ford dealerships are a common site anywhere whether you are in the US or abroad. There are roughly 3,700 Ford dealerships located in the United States. As I prepared to head to Manhattan Ford located on 11th Avenue, I had several recollections of the Ford brand as a whole. My Grandfather was an Engineer at Ford. My family always drove Ford cars or trucks. My first car was a Ford Probe GT. In fact, much of anything that I ever knew about cars growing up usually came from the Ford brand.
As I have lived in Manhattan for seven years now and Chicago for 6 years before that, I have had little to no need to visit a car dealership, I didn’t really know what to expect. I walked in and immediately thought about the first Ford dealership I had ever been to as a child in Michigan. On the floor you had examples of their latest car lines. Of course every model they had was the most expensive model they make; even the Fiesta had leather interior. I always remember it being that way when I was a child. I always wanted my parents to buy what was in the showroom floor.
Ford Manhattan’s showroom is definitely different from an information/marketing and comfort standpoint then from what I remember in the past. For instance there are “concept salons” for each line where you sit and learn about Ford’s product line based on which one you are interested in. For the comfort factor they have Café 11 which serves Starbucks coffee. It all seemed a little much to me, but I can definitely see how one would be interested. I am more of a grab a brochure, go home and read it over kind of guy. I was defiantly interesting though to utilize the interactive learning tool. The one thing that did not change though is the sales force. Pushy as ever, it was really the main reason I left faster than I had expected. Overall it was nice to visit. It was good to see how dealerships have changed with the times.
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