What Makes a Snowbaroo

Chapter Four - Ask for Alé

If this were a sitcom, I'd already be on Season Two, given how much writing this has been for me. I'm bored of talking about the Snowbaroo models for now, so you'll have to stick around to hear more about the Impasta, Outrun, TRX, BRA, Decent, Forager, and Crossback. Whew, that's gonna be a lot to cover.

Anyway, the main issue with our location was that Dark Dimension Ford lay right on the line between Dark Dimension, New York and some other New York town. Bedfordville, or something along those lines. When Dark Dimension Ford's owner came in, he had really bad eyesight and couldn't figure out how to employ Google Maps, so he just assumed his property was in Dark Dimension, New York. But really, that whole side of the street, including the abandoned Mitsubishi dealership next to Ford, lay in Bedfordville. Everyone at our dealership had been around long enough, except for me and Alex, to see Mitsubishi as our sworn rival. Good thing that Lancet or Lancelot car they had got scrapped, because that was the big TRX competitor for a huge time.

Now, we got a new complication.

Dan Lurkins Snowbaroo set up shop overnight, like a meth lab except more sinister, in that old Mitsubishi building. A day later, they had copied every single vehicle on our lot. Even down to the options and paintjobs! The plasma yellow Crossback with heated seats, roof rails, and tan leather interior? The lowered Outrun with a tow package, sport grille, black cloth interior, and Harman Carmen speakers? Even the TRX with air ride suspension, heated seats, the full SpySight suite, advanced rear and front radar, turbo upgrade package, and sport tuned exhaust?!

Lucky for us, their sales shop consisted of a cracking, sun-bleached parking lot and a showroom marked by weird angular glass protrusions and matte black façade. Our curved front look was totally better looking.

They'd hastily thrown up a Snowbaroo logo over where the Mitsubishi recycling triangle thing once was painted, but you could tell they weren't too concerned about not looking as Snowbaroo, through-and-through as we were.

Yet, it was still a tense moment when George called us together around the hood of a gunmetal grey BRA, like we were going to battle.

"Dan Lurkins moved from some place called Milford, Connecticut," He informed us. "They used to have an older dealership, with that salmon-colored, stone-lined, blue-roofed look. That was the branding we used to have before they renovated and went slate, navy blue, and silver for our look."

"I liked that old look," Ben chimed in a low tone. "It felt more like a villa style."

"They managed to get an exception from Snowbaroo to sell within our radius, as Snowbaroo believes this area is higher-traffic than any of their other locations. Or, they didn't realize how close Bedford is to Dark Dimension." George let out a really heavy sigh, and fixed us all with the look of a real leader.

"Dan Lurkins is the largest dealer in the area. We were the first, but somehow, his dealership is larger than ours."

"George," I frowned, "Are we actually scared of a guy whose Snowbaroo signage is a hand-drawn Snowbaroo logo on a piece of flattened cardboard?"

That made the whole group stop, and look outside at the piece of pizza box with the words, "Snow-Baroo Sold Here," scribbled on it.

"Don't be swayed by their lack of signage, Grisly. Dan Lurkins has impeccable social media presence." Frederick, who'd just spoken, now stepped forward to show me his phone screen. Freddy liked big phones, so it was easy of us all to gather around the iPhone next generation, One-Hundred, Double-XL, Cobalt, Mega-Pro-Pro and see Dan Lurkins' Instagram feed. Figures, he had actual product photos on the ground; all we had were the stock photos provided by Snowbaroo on our website.