One Car -- Take It Or Leave It

I went by a tiny little car lot today, out in the country. I think they had four or maybe five used cars for sale.

It made me wonder how small a car lot could be and still have it pay off. Like what if you only had one car? One car on the lot, with a few light bulbs and pennants strung around to make it look like a proper car lot. Maybe a modest sign, "Gus's Used Cars -- Let's Deal."

So you pull in, assuming you have a car to get there in, and you check out the lot. Of course Gus comes hurrying out, wiping his mouth and hands from eating chicken. Both of you have your eye on the car -- you and Gus -- because that's all there is. You're trying to think of something nice to say, perhaps, or maybe you're really interested. Gus is sizing you up for the angle that will most likely make the sale.

I went by a car rental place one time, and it seems like they only had one car. There it set, waiting to take the first customer wherever he wanted to go. We were thinking that everyone has to start somewhere. If you need to start with one car and build a fleet, or maybe you'll just stick with one car so the work load won't be so great, it's up to you.

Personally, if I had a car rental place I wouldn't want to disappoint all the other customers who might show up. It's great to have one satisfied customer, sure, but not that great, in my opinion, for the rest of the town to be complaining.

You could start a taxi service easy enough with one car -- if you could manage to get all the city waivers. Every other trip across town you could put a different advertising sign on the doors and people would think there was more than one car. It'd be bad for business, again, if you had a lot more calls than you could handle.