most likely some celebrity moron, if indeed this is not a manufactured event (GM doing the bidding via a surrogate).
My guess is there is $25k in cash in the trunk of that car. That or hes doing homegrown electroshock treatment.
It's happened in the past. I remember the Miata getting a hefty premium during it's first production year. A lot of exotics, especially the limited runs, like the F-40, GT, etc. have insane markups on a regular basis. But, the only production GM car (that wasn't a Corvette) in recent memory that had a similar premium was the Buick GNX. Hell of a car if you ever had the fortune to put one through it's paces.
Grade school friend of mine's father had one. He claimed with a chip and some other modifications it had over 500hp. Cool car.
Anybody want to wager when BYD or Cherry Auto will start selling them for 18k. Any bussiness model making the early adopters pay a huge premium better have a great deal of loyalty with the consumer. In the current economic enviroment it is not cost effective for the consumer. If the market was ready for it Ford would punching GM's lights out. Akuma
Yeah, it was a hell of car but, I think your friend's dad was pulling your leg. Click on performance modifications at the following link. http://www.gnxregistry.org/ Not sure why these folks are so obsessed though, after all, it was a product of the 80's. As good as the GNX was, the Dodge Viper has a much better price/performance curve.
I attempted to buy a new Cadillac CTS-V last year. Made a few calls to GM dealers and found that many were adding a huge premium. Other dealers claimed to have cars on the way that GM shipping said were not on the way and wanted a deposit. They treated me like shit and it was just a huge ripoff all the way 'round. They kept calling for months. Walked into a Ford dealer a few days later and found a complete different outlook. They had cars I wanted right there on the lot and gave me a deep discount on a new Shelby GT500 convertible. They remember me and I am treated like royalty in their parts and service departments even if I'm just buying parts for my old pickup. I'm not likely to buy a GM product ever again. The Volt is a complete joke. They couldn't make the car work as a pure electric with onboard generator so they just made it a hybrid like all the others. All the hype is complete nonsense. In a sense the Volt is similar to the Obama adminstration itself. Underpowered, over-hyped and under-sold.
I hate to break this to you but, you're treated like royalty because they off-loaded a big-time lemon on you... http://jalopnik.com/5200474/2010-shelby-gt500-why-the-convertible-sucks