ROCHESTER, NY – Owing to a lack of inventory, a local Certified Pre-Owned Honda dealer is offering a slew of unusual incentives to get people to sell their cars back to him so that he can sell them to other people. Mr. Hirohito Yamamoto, age 106 (but looks like he’s 53), explained his reasoning.
“Honda just makes too good a product, and I’m in the used car business. I cannot have customers buying new cars and driving them around until they don’t work anymore, as most who buy Hondas do. The trouble is, Hondas barely ever break! So you have all these people driving around in safe, reliable cars that last. How am I supposed to sell them if they won’t give them back?!”
Having worked for Honda for a very long time, Mr. Yamamoto knows better than most the quality of craftsmanship that goes into making one. “It is a very Japanese thing,” he said. “Precision and accuracy. All very important.”
But precision and accuracy is exactly what’s making business so tough, not to mention record inflation and the continually rising price of import costs.
So, to incentivize people to give their Hondas back to him, Mr. Yamamoto has decided to create a new program he’s calling the “Three Tier Buyback.” The program combines cash percentage returns with discounts at Sushi World and Hibachi Galore, both of which are, coincidentally, owned by Mr. Yamamoto.
The first tier is aimed at those who have bought newer Hondas from 2016 to the present. They will receive 45% of the current value of their car in cash, plus a year of free sushi if they buy two rolls or more at Sushi World and 6 months of 20% off ½ a hibachi meal at Hibachi Galore.
The second tier, for 2008 to 2014 Hondas, gets you 30% of the car’s current value in cash, 6 months of free sushi if you buy two rolls or more and 4 months of 10% off ¼ of a hibachi meal.
The third tier is reserved for the oldest of Hondas, anything pre-2008. Here you’ll receive 10% of the car’s current value in cash, 1 month of free sushi if you buy two rolls or more, and 5% off 1/16 a hibachi meal.
So far, Yamamoto has seen decent success. Within the 6 months the program has been operable, he’s brought in 100 cars at first tier, 68 cars at second tier, and 2 at the third tier.
So, his showroom is stocked, and his restaurants are packed to pre-pandemic levels. But there is a darker side to Mr. Yamamoto’s Buyback program.
Lately, a mysteriously large number of 1990’s era Civics have appeared on Yamamoto’s lot. And not the respectable, conservative Civics. The ones that have been appearing are the modified ones with enhanced engines, cut exhausts, crazy fenders, and massive rear spoilers. So, why exactly are these “Yob Mobiles” suddenly making an appearance on Yamamoto’s lot.
“Porn,” he says.
You read that correctly: porn. On Wednesday evenings, Yamamoto draws the curtains over the enormous windows of his dealership and converts it into an animated porn theater.
“I would rather not have added it,” he confesses. “But my nephew and his buddies drove very expensive, modified Civics I wanted to sell back for 10 times what they’re worth. My nephew said he and his friends would only sell them to me if I let them watch porn at my dealership once a week.”
Word soon got around to the modified Civic crowd, and soon Yamamoto’s lot was overflowing with late 90s Civics, painted in neon and tattooed in street art.
“I didn’t realize there was such a market for this,” he admitted. Yamamoto, who doesn’t take part in the viewings, is nonetheless going to keep it up.
“I get the car, and they get to enjoy a little depravity. So far, I’ve made almost $200,000 selling their cars to other buyers and 5 times that in ticket sales. And, look, it keeps them out of trouble.”
Editor’s Note: In the days since this article was published, Federal Authorities have raided Mr. Yamamoto’s dealership in connection with an international fraud scheme. Yamamoto has disappeared, though his nephew and his friends have all been grounded by their parents.
