Snowstorms keep car dealers moving

When the snow stopped falling Thursday night, roads were covered, tree branches were bent, and temperatures plunged, freezing everything in place.

But in a dimly lit parking lot off Ridge Pike in Plymouth Meeting, Joe Natale was working.

With a single plow and dozens of car keys, Natale went about the tedious job he has done so many times before: preparing the lot at Battaglia Auto as if the snow had not come.

After all, who would test-drive a Mustang the next day if its red coat was frosted over?

"Strategize," Natale, the general manager, said Friday, succinctly summing up the mantra needed for car dealers to beat the snow.

The reason? Preparations can resemble a real-life Tetris game, auto sales employees say. Move cars here, plow over there. But make sure you pile the snow in just the right spot.

"It's all hands on deck," said Frank Lynch, a salesman at Kennedy Ford, up the street from Battaglia.

The Kennedy staff spent most of Friday morning dusting off cars and shuttling them from a nearby storage lot, where they stayed overnight so that the display lot could be plowed after dawn.

Kennedy is a much larger dealership than Battaglia, with about 150 cars on display, compared to Battaglia's 60 or so.

Naturally, then, Battaglia also uses a much smaller staff to prepare for bad weather. On Thursday night, Natale was one of two readying the lot for the next day's sales.

First, about a dozen sports cars get stored inside the dealership, since they often move poorly in the snow.

Then, when the snow stops, the remaining cars are moved in clumps to the front of the dealership, parked and cleaned off with a "snow rake," a Styrofoam tool that won't scratch the car.

Meanwhile, Natale plows. When he finishes the area where the clump of cars was once parked, they're moved back and he find another area to plow.

The process repeats for a few hours - some parts of the lot are treated with a snowblower instead - and when finished, Natale goes home. On Thursday, he worked past midnight.

Still, Friday morning he came to work. And by noon, he'd sold one already. A black Honda sedan.

If there was any snow left on that car, it would simply be driven from the lot this time.

One less puzzle piece for Natale to move during the next storm.