- The car market has gone bananas during the pandemic.
- Used and new cars are increasingly hard to find, pushing buyers to consider unusual options.
- Lifted Trucks, a dealer of jacked-up pickups in Arizona, is smashing sales records as demand booms.
The pandemic has kicked the car market into overdrive. And it's not just run-of-the-mill crossovers and SUVs that are selling like hotcakes.
Amid shortages on dealer lots and a voracious appetite for cars, vehicles once considered niche are entering the mainstream.
At Lifted Trucks, which modifies used pickups and SUVs with taller suspensions, beefier tires, and new wheels, business has been booming throughout the pandemic. The company has broken sales records practically every month since May 2020 across its four locations in Arizona, Chad Staples, the company's corporate director of training and recruiting, told Insider in July.
A stew of factors brought on by the pandemic - most notably a shortage of computer chips critical for building cars - has sent new and used vehicle prices skyrocketing. Buyers unsatisfied with options on the new side are shifting toward the secondhand market, driving up prices and crunching inventories.
It all means that most used vehicles are impossible to find for a low price, and many are hard to come by altogether. The chip shortage has hit truck production hard, and used pickups have experienced some of the most staggering price increases over the last year as inventories dwindle.
A secondhand Ram 1500 cost $40,200 in June, a whopping $12,000 or 42.6% increase over the year prior, according to automotive researcher iSeeCars.com. GMC Sierra prices surged $14,000 or 41.3% over the same period.
On top of its usual clientele, Lifted Trucks has seen a spike in customers who weren't seeking out a jacked-up pickup, but couldn't find what they were looking for anywhere else, Staples said. Scarcity across the country means many buyers are willing to shell out thousands extra for a 2-8-inch lift if it means they can finally get their hands on the right truck.
And with a median cost of $55,000, Lifted Trucks' vehicles don't come cheap. Plenty of models in its inventory will run you north of $75,000.
Read more: A GM exec turned SPAC founder reveals how a flying car startup just landed a $1 billion deal
Desperate buyers are coming from farther away than ever. Before the pandemic, Lifted Trucks' sales were predominantly regional, with the occasional customer in nearby California, New Mexico, or Nevada, Staples said. Now 30-40% of inquiries come from out of state. One recent customer drove his trade-in from Pennsylvania.
Moreover, trucks that would've sat on Lifted Trucks' lots for a while in normal times are being snatched up fast. Vehicles with unusual options packages and bizarre paint jobs - like banana yellow, orange, and neon green - don't last long, Staples said.
With buyers willing to pay more than ever, especially for hard-to-find vehicles, profit margins are up by 30%, Staples said. Models in particularly short supply are going for astronomical prices. A GM diesel truck would've gone for somewhere in the $60,000 range before the pandemic - now Lifted Trucks doesn't part with them for less than $80,000.
Lifted Trucks' success mirrors a larger trend sweeping
"Vehicles that otherwise wouldn't be looked at might be the only vehicles on the lot," Cameron Johnson, who runs Magic City Auto Group's four dealerships in Virginia, told Insider. "I think everything is being considered now."
The average price paid for a used vehicle surged almost 30% between June 2020 and June 2021 to around $26,500, according to Edmunds.
Amid the buying frenzy, Lifted Trucks is looking to expand. It's opening up another store in Scottsdale, Arizona in the fall, before looking to build a national presence with stores in Texas, Colorado, and elsewhere.
Are you a car dealer, owner, or private seller with a story to share about what it's like to buy and sell cars right now? Has a dealer offered to buy your used or leased car? Contact this reporter at tlevin@insider.com