Summary: On continental road trips, joys of rear wheel drive, diesel engines and autobahn speeds, pilgrimage to Porsche and BMW’s brand meccas. How to understand the world through toy cars, from Matchbox to Hot Wheels, Siku, Majorette to Tomica. Jim returns to the business of car distribution with an Alfred Sloan quote: “Between 1923–29 the leveling of demand for new cars logically resulted in a change of emphasis in the industry from production to distribution. On the sales end that meant a change from easy selling to hard selling. Dealer problems of an entirely new nature began to arise.” We consider car dealer data and discuss the “channel stuffing” origins of state franchise regulation. Horace reminds us that the current auto industry is constructed around production and distribution. We close by reflecting on Apple’s routing around now defunct computer retail channels via its highly successful stores, just 13 years ago.
