What’s the deal with mall cars?

32 comments

1. They were usually some kind of pre-internet data harvesting thing. Like, sign up here with your name, phone number, and address for a chance to win this car. Then they sell that information to telemarketers or whoever else wants to buy it.

2. They’re usually there for sweepstakes and prizes, yeah

3. A lot of malls are dying a slow death in the country right now. There used to be a lot more of them, and it was not uncommon to have some cars displayed in the mall. Usually they just had ads for the dealer, some salesmen’s cards, etc., with them.

4. >Can you win them? Buy them? 1.000.000 customer gets them? Are they just for exhibition? Deco? Can anyone please enlighten me?

   All of the above? In my experience they were usually either an advertisement for a local dealership and/or a promotion for the mall or a local business (give us your name, address, etc which we’ll in turn add to our marketing lists and maybe sell to other marketers and you’ll have a 1 in 250,000 chance of winning this car, that sort of thing).

5. I haven’t been to a mall in years but back in my “mall rat” days we occasionally had cars in the mall. They were put there by car dealers as a sales device.

   If you are walking around the mall and see a car it might get you thinking about buying a new one.

   Think of them as nothing more than ads.

6. Yes to all, and they have them in other countries too. I was just in KL and Singapore and they had mall cars

7. People still go to malls?

8. When I was a kid it was just a local car dealership paid to display a car.

   No lottery or anything.

   Just like — look at this new Mustsng!

9. > Can you win them?

   Sometimes. You fill out your name and address, drop the paper in the box, and you get tons of advertisements for the next several years.

   > Buy them? Are they just for exhibition?

   Yes. Today, they might be part of advertising a local car dealership. It’s basically a billboard for the car sales place.

10. They’ve been doing that for years lol and they usually have a give away for them.

11. I did one recently for an ATV because I’m desperate for one, and was told I was a “runner up” winner, but in order to redeem, I had to bring in a key they mailed to me to see if it was the right key. But in order to do that, I had to sit through a time share presentation and my spouse HAD to attend or I’d be disqualified. There away the packet/key they mailed me as soon as I got it

12. Unless it’s a contest, it’s most likely for marketing purposes for the car dealer that arranged to have it placed there.

13. I remember them just being there so you could see them and go inside like an interactive advertisement. It was a specific dealership trying to get sales.

    Interestingly, I was in a mall a week or two ago and saw a Tesla store with Teslas you could go inside so I guess this still kind of exists.

14. Back when we still had malls, yes you would see these there. Never met anyone who won one. My guess is nobody ever did.

    I’ve seen a few in airports in the past few years as well.

15. Around me, Usually just a display for the local dealer

16. Advertising

17. In my experience, these are almost always for advertising. Costco often has them in front of their doors.

    “Look at our wonderful new cars! Come down to the dealership and buy one!”

18. Back when I was a kid every time a generation of vehicles got released they would park them inside a mall. It was a way of enticing people who weren’t in the market for a new car to write down their info for sales leads. The only car I see in a mall these days is Tesla. There is a little showroom in the Houston Galleria.

19. At the high end mall near my house in NJ luxury car dealerships rent space to put some cars there. It’s nice looking at Porsches and Bentleys and many of the people shopping at this mall can afford them.

20. Dealers would rent a kiosk space for advertising, usually there’d be salesman’s contact cards tucked under the wipers.

    Pre-covid and maybe again now inventory is rising, I always thought a sure sign of a dying mall is when part of the outer parking lot was rented out to a car dealer for overstock parking *without* an in-mall car display, since when you saw that you know mall management offered it but the dealer said “nah, we’re good”.

21. Depends on the brand?

    They’re just there for marketing I think, as an easy place to check out a car.

    Sometimes newer or smaller brands planning to enter the market will have mall stores for display, like Vinfast, Fisker, etc.

    Porsche shops are just there to sell clothes/small leather goods/shirts/tennis racquets etc.

    I’m fairly certain Tesla/Lexus/Lincoln just have shops in malls for marketing. They can schedule you for a test drive though.

22. My local mall still has it. They are basically advertising for local car dealer. He uses top floor of said mall to park their new cars.

23. At my local mall they were just to kind of advertise a dealership. I don’t know if you could buy the specific car from the mall or just one like it. I don’t remember there being any contest to win the cars.

24. I haven’t seen a car in a mall in years

25. I do know that you need to bring your own gas if you wanna steal them. That’s how my buddy Keith got caught once.

    What you gotta do is gas it up before you hotwire it

26. I love that you’re fascinated with this because when I was a little kid I remember being fascinated too and wondering how the cars got in the mall

27. In my day (I’m 48) the cars in the mall weren’t for sale there or winnable in any contest. It was merely a local dealership who put an attractive car there along with their contact information. The mall got a ton of foot traffic back in the day, seems like good advertising if the cost of the space to put the care there was affordable. The foot traffic was similar to midtown-Manhattan foot traffic on a Saturday.

28. I never give out my real phone number – just transpose a couple numbers. If asked for my email, I flat out tell them I don’t give that info to data marketers. If it’s for something I might like to see, I have an email address used for that reason only, and empty it regularly. If you are a personal friend I know in real life, you get my secret email.

29. [The new Oldsmobiles are in early this year](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JiHWzNr_uk)

30. Usually it was an “Enter to Win” type deal, but there were times when the local dealership would put new models out for people to look at too. Kind of giant advertisements. When the PT Cruiser and PT Prowler first came out I remember them being out at the mall with ropes around them.

    What was really fun was when the radio station would do a Last Man Standing thing where the last person touching the car won it. That was usually done in a mall (at least, it was in Arizona where I’m from) and was a huge spectacle.

31. You don’t see it so much anymore, but when I have seen them recently it’s been more as an ad for the the car itself and a local dealership.

32. I did that job around one Christmas time. There was a a real contest to win the car or $50k, but the main purpose was to try to sell people timeshares.