I've bought two new Ford's in the past decade (technically three - I bought one and wrote it off 4 weeks later, insurance bought me a replacement!)
It would be great if I could go to Ford's website, choose my car, pick the option packages, pay for it via EFT/CC.
Then it gives me an estimated lead time to delivery (maybe a dealership has one in stock?) with a tracking number - this number is like a freight tracking number, you can see it's estimated manufacture, when it hits the ship, where the ship is, when it hits your local Port, delivery to pre-delivery yard then delivery to my door.
It's a low cost business model and customer is getting what they want without having to deal with a bunch of sales people, the extras lady, 'dealer delivery' fees etc.
The whole manufacturer - wholesale
distributor - reseller - customer model is outdated and a lot of other businesses are moving away from this model.
You can buy everything else online so why not cars?
Still have your
distributor/franchisee network for traditional customer but you don't need so many of them.