Gary Hoffman
Gary Hoffman, Correspondent
Gary Hoffman has written about the auto industry for most of the last 30 years, primarily specializing in the purchasing and sales processes within dealerships. He has been… editor of a magazine, Chevy PRO, for Chevrolet dealerships and the Ford employee newspaper, Ford World, and has written on automotive subjects for the French news agency, Agence France-Presse, the Detroit News and numerous other publications. Fluent in French and German, he has worked as a translator for major international news organizations, primarily on automotive subjects. He is also an adjunct journalism instructor at Wayne State University in Detroit, teaching investigative reporting, news management and publishing on the Internet.
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Gary Hoffman
(25 Articles)
Published Nov, 13 2009
> In Pictures: Finance Deals Interest rate incentives are all over the map this month, since automakers have adopted various sales strategies to boost sales. Ford and Chrysler have been tacking extra cash rebates onto their interest rate deals. These offers are ideal for buyers with substantial trade-ins or cash down payments -- they get a nice payback even if they finance just a fraction of th...
Published Nov, 10 2009
> In Pictures: Best Lease Deals Automakers are offering surprisingly good lease rates this month, with payments as low as $159 on compacts and barely above $200 for high-value midsize cars. And it's not just the most affordable cars featuring leasing incentives -- BMW, Infiniti and Acura are championing rates that are low by premium standards. While Japanese and German automakers are the big pl...
Published Nov, 05 2009
> In Pictures: Best November Deals It's not easy to make predictions about the auto industry, but there are signs that the long-running buyers' market is starting to lose ground. As a result, automakers may not need an extremely high level of rebates and special financing to attract customers. Factories are purring along to fill depleted stocks after the "Cash for Clunkers" program, and a restr...
Published Oct, 30 2009
Over the next few months, car buyers have a chance to take home a piece of automotive history and maybe get a bargain in the process. They can buy a Pontiac before the nameplate disappears from new-car showrooms forever. But they will have to act fast. Inventories are already shrinking, and the very last Pontiacs are due to go out of production sometime next year, following nameplates like Packard...
Published Oct, 27 2009
After 62 years and 2 million miles on New York streets, 82-year-old "Jack the Hack" Dym has parked his cab for the last time. Fresh out of the U.S. Army, he began driving a cab in 1947, following his father and three brothers into the business. It was an era of hulking DeSoto, Packard and Checker cabs, a lush Manhattan street life, and cheap gas. His own cab, a Packard, became his entrée to p...
Published Oct, 24 2009
In sports as in international trade, it’s the raw figures in the record books that can be the toughest to swallow.Imagine the Philadelphia Phillies annihilating the Tampa Bay Rays 4,000 to 3 in the final game of the 2008 World Series, and you have something like the U.S. automakers’ success rate in breaking into the Japanese and Korean markets. It is as though the Arizona Cardinals fel...