Corvettes Sellling in The Oil Patch -- The Bakken, North Dakota, USA

I was gone the entire weekend and I am now playing catch up. I'm glad it's a holiday, otherwise it would be almost impossible to catch up.

Readers send me a lot of links over the weekend.

This may be the best human interest story: selling Corvettes in Williston, link to the Bismarck Tribune.

It takes awhile to get to the "meat" of the article, but when you get there, it's a great story.

He won't say — maybe he can't or truly doesn't know — if he's selling more Corvettes than any dealership in the upper Midwest, but he agrees he's likely the No. 1 dealer in a four-state area.

He also won't say how many he sells in a year — it's a trade-secret, he says — but says it's "dozens."

With the boom, he's selling maybe one-third more than he would otherwise. "They tell me I'm selling a lot," he said.
 
But Murphy said he sold a lot of Corvettes even before new oil wealth started pouring in, to customers who might live in North Dakota, but as easily live in states from Florida to Washington.

He loves the car himself and trades up for a new one every year.

"I have a high degree of product knowledge and if someone comes in and they're buying that $100,000 car, we're going to talk. They're going to get a first-class product demonstration," he said.

He sold two 2012, ZR1s, with 638 horsepower, the fastest Corvette ever made, sticker priced at $126,000 - one in January and one this month. The package includes training at affiliated race tracks in Las Vegas and Phoenix.

"It's hard to believe, but I've sold two of the most expensive models so far this year and it's only February," he said.

Two things about the first sale: "It was not related to the boom, at all, and no one would expect to sell a ZR1 in January," he said. The second sale was to a guy who's working in the oil field service industry.
 
The Z06 is a beauty outside, but Murphy says where it's really pretty is under the hood, where the gleaming engine powers a performance from 0-75 mph "that's completely unique."

The odometer (sic) tops out at 220 mph.

This is not an impulse buy, this decision to own America's sports car, which is as fast, if not faster at half or even a one-fourth the price of a Ferrari, Lamborghini or a Mercedes, he said.

Kewl. As fast or faster than a Lamborghini, one-fourth the price, made in America, and serviced in Williston. Hard to get your Lamborghini serviced there, I suppose. What a deal.

Unless things have changes, my hunch is that the number one Corvette dealership is in Colorado or California.