If you can’t remember the last time you struck a good bargain, a few lessons from Mike Brewer might help. The British ex-car trader, with more than 40 years of experience in buying and selling cars, was popular as the presenter of television series such as Deals on Wheels, before taking up Wheeler Dealers on Discovery Turbo in 2003. This June, a new spin on the show - Wheeler Dealers: Trading Up - is set to premiere and sees Brewer on a mission to trade his way up from a car worth $3,000 to a supercar worth $30,000. More from the master trader:
How did you become an expert on trading your way up?
You start with a one-bedroom apartment, then get a two bedroom apartment, and finally a house. I’ve done the same with cars all my life. I realised that I could do it on a national scale and did it in the UK successfully. I once did a programme where I started off with just BP 300 and traded my way up to a new car.
The best and worst deals on the show.
The best was a car that I bought in California – a 1967 Chevrolet Camaro – for $15,000, shipped it to Dubai and sold it for $26,500. By sending it to another country, I managed to almost double its value. A bad deal was a 1972 Toyota Celica, which I bought in Japan at a car auction, in a panic to make some money. When I took it on a test drive to Mount Fuji, it kept breaking down. So I sent it back to the auction where it sold for less money than I bought it for.
Trading in India.
My first purchase in India was a Maruti Alto. I had to buy a car that was at the bottom of the car market and the only way to achieve a profit out of it was to try and get it into the middle class emerging market. I would imagine that right now would be a very good time to be a car salesman in India.
Wheeler Dealers airs on Discovery Turbo at 10 pm.
