Back to Malcolm Gladwell #4, with Malcolm Gladwell.
Should You Test Drive a Ferrari You Cannot Buy?
Dax Shepard says you should not test drive a Ferrari you cannot buy. Personal decency, he says, means you should not make salespeople spend their limited eight hours trying to sell a car to someone who cannot buy it.
When Dax Shepard was 18, he had no money and went to a Ferrari dealership. He says he would be a shithead to waste a salesman's hour and to take on the liability of driving an expensive car he could not replace if he smashed it on the ride, only to experience a Ferrari for a half hour. He asks where his personal responsibility is if he feels entitled to drive a Ferrari only because he wants to. A dealer will let him test drive now, he says, because he can buy one and can replace it if he destroys it on the drive. Dax Shepard says you can walk into a Toyota dealer with no appointment, point to a car, and ask to test drive it.
Monica Padman tells Dax Shepard the staff do not know, and that he later did have the means. Monica Padman says the time spent with a shopper is the job. Monica Padman is unsure about car dealerships and asks whether a test drive needs an appointment, and whether anyone can do a drive or only someone who can pay.