GreenLight: Volume 7

GreenLight Magazine was a publication focused on auto finance and related topics – aimed at the Finance & Insurance specialists at dealerships. First created and published on behalf of Drive Financial, it used a style similar to Drive’s corporate style guide. When Drive was acquired by, and rebranded into, Santander Consumer USA, the publication was redesigned to accommodate styling similar to publications created by parent company Banco Santander.

Coverage in this issue focused on the cash-for-clunkers program – one of the biggest automotive stories of the decade as far as the lasting impact on the marketplace. Cash-for-clunkers was meant to stimulate demand for new vehicles at a time when production had ground nearly to a halt, and it worked. It also had the effect of removing many vehicles at the bottom-end of the used-vehicle marketplace, in turn raising the values of used cars across the board for the next four years. This, in turn, led to more new-vehicle sales where buyers might have previously considered a used option. The high price of used cars made new cars and leases – with their better financing terms and long warranties – a more attractive option.