Last spring, Mississauga, Ont., restaurateur Chris Soupourmas took one look at the Acura 3.5RL's $55,800 price tag and gave up on the idea of owning a new luxury sedan.

That was then. Now, he has just become the proud owner of a brand new black 2004 3.5RL with creamy tan leather interior. And he didn't cough up nearly $56,000 for the privilege, either.

Soupourmas, who has owned the popular Jessie's at the corner of Matheson and Kennedy for 22 years, got what he considers the deal of a lifetime: about $40,000 for a loaded RL. Lump in taxes and fees and the final price was pumped up to about $50,000.

"When the car was $55,000 or something like that, plus taxes, I said, 'No way. I'm not doing that.' It was too expensive," says Soupourmas, an outgoing father of three teenagers. "But I've always loved the Acura. I just never thought I'd have a car like this."

Soupourmas could afford the car thanks to a massive $10,000 rebate from Acura, as well an additional $3,464 dealer discount combined with a $1,101.96 break on the taxes for a total savings of $15,483.60 off the original $55,800 MSRP (manufacturer's suggested retail price).

It was a great deal -- and in today's cut-throat marketplace such bargains are becoming more the rule than the exception.

"Some of the incentives out there are just crazy," says Paul Timoteo, whose company CarCostCanada.com took a $30 flat fee for providing Soupourmas with the dealer invoice price and all incentive information for the RL.

Armed with that data, Soupourmas was able to get red hot pricing from the dealership by bargaining up from the invoice price rather than down from the manufacturer's suggested retail price. Of course, incentives such as cut-rate financing and cash-back handouts are not new to the automotive marketplace. Auto makers have been using them at least since Lee Iacocca was pitching K-cars for Chrysler in the 1980s, and even before that.

What is highly unusual now is the depth and breadth of giveaways and that European and Japanese auto makers, who have traditionally spurned economic promotions for fear of devaluing their brands, are now right in the thick of the action to spur shoppers into showroom decisions.

Timoteo says he's never seen such bargains on so many new models right across the board: from Acura to BMW to Ford and General Motors, Chrysler, Honda and Toyota. Everyone is playing the incentive game.

"The incentives make buying a car really interesting, but very dangerous, too," Timoteo says.

Dangerous in that shoppers might miss the latest sweet giveaway or fail to capitalize on all the goodies manufacturers are offering to entice people to take the plunge on a new set of wheels.

"The thing is, zero per cent [financing] is just the bare minimum now, the starting point," Timoteo says. "Buyers are also looking for big cash incentives on top of that."

Creating the ideal purchasing environment for consumers is a kind of perfect storm of conditions that is hammering manufacturers.

Auto analyst Dennis DesRosiers of DesRosiers Automotive Consultants, says after several years of aggressive shopping, most Canadians do not need to buy a new vehicle right now. The market is relatively saturated.

That is a major reason why new vehicle sales in August were dismal, down 6.7 per cent to 132,518 units from 142,062 units in August of 2003. DesRosiers says sales for the first eight months of 2004 are down 4.9 per cent.

Aside from saturation, DesRosiers believes a number of other factors are putting the brakes on new vehicle sales in Canada.

"First, high gas and insurance prices are keeping the lower-end consumer out of the market entirely, or at the very least pushing them into the used vehicle market," he says. "Second, in both July and August, fleet sales, which typically account for about 20 per cent of demand, have been soft."

DesRosiers believes the fat incentives available for more than a year now successfully pushed buyers into the market months ago, thus eroding normal demand at the present time.

"You can argue that the extra sales from a year or two years ago are coming out of sales that we would normally have today. In essence the future is today," he says.

Then, there are the global factors. Auto makers around the world are coping with a glut of capacity to manufacture cars and light trucks. The world's car plants are capable of producing more than 70 million new vehicles a year, yet global sales amount to only about 55 million. So there is too much supply chasing too little demand on a worldwide scale.

Meanwhile, domestic manufacturers need to keep their factories humming in order to generate cash flow to fund ballooning pension and health care costs, especially in the United States.

Add into that mix a glut of new models. For the 2005 model year, more than 60 new cars and light trucks will be introduced. With a flood of all-new 2005 models pouring into showrooms in the next 30 to 60 days, manufacturers are particularly interested in cleaning out leftover 2004 models.

Naturally, this results in the ripest of conditions for buyers to strike brilliant deals.

"GM has been the driving force in this," Timoteo says. "They have watched their market share erode and they've seen incentives have an effect at reversing that. And GM has the deepest pockets."

Indeed, GM has just launched its latest Canada-Wide Clearance promotion, offering not just zero per cent financing and a $1,000 cash bonus, but also a gasoline deal which calls for a discount of 20 cents a litre on 2,500 litres of gas.

This isn't GM's only offer, although it is one of the more up-front giveaways. Less obvious, but just as real and lucrative, are some of the incentives offered by European and Japanese auto makers.

Honda, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Honda and Toyota have all jumped into the price wars, though they are reluctant to be terribly obvious in their promotions.

Honda, for instance, saw its Civic lose the crown of best-selling car in Canada during the first few months of this year to an aggressively styled and re-engineered 2004 Mazda3.

In response, Honda has pumped up Civic sales with a $750 trading dollars credit on most Civics. Trading dollars amount essentially to a cash incentive offered to Honda dealers, who can then offer that money to buyers. Not only that, the sporty Civic SiR comes with $2,500 in trading dollars and 2.8 per cent financing for 60 months.

"There are also potential dealer discounts of $700 to $1,200 depending on the model," Timoteo says. "These were unheard-of bargains just a few months ago."

But they work. Civic sales in July were up 13.7 per cent, yet in the first quarter of this year, Civic sales were down 19.1 per cent.

Then, there is BMW. The Bavarian automaker's August sales were up 31 per cent on a host of new products and some well-targeted incentives.

"BMW is very guarded about their factory incentives, but my mole at BMW uncovered a few very interesting programs," Timoteo says.

For instance, the 2004 BMW X3 sport-utility vehicle, a brand new model launched last year, comes with a $3,800 cash incentive on the 2.5-litre version and the 3.0 model has a $4,500 incentive.

"Plus, there are potential dealer discounts of $2,000 to $3,000," Timoteo says.

BMW Canada is also offering an $8,000 cash incentive on the 7 Series luxury sedan and an additional $2,000 for current BMW owners. Timoteo says there are also potential dealer discounts of $4,000 to $8,000 for aggressive shoppers.

And the list of deals and discounts goes on, often led by manufacturers anxious to move out an older model to make way for a new one. A good example: the 2004 Cadillac Seville.

Just weeks from now, Cadillac will introduce a completely restyled and re-engineered version of this luxury sedan with a new name -- STS. The renovated car is a vast improvement over the 2004 Seville, which, however, remains a very nice sedan.

Not surprisingly, the 2004 Cadillac Seville SLS or STS is available with a 0.9 per cent lease rate for 48 months, plus a $5,000 cash discount. GM is also offering a $5,000 loyalty bonus for current owners or lessees of all 1993-2005 Cadillac models.

"With an all-new STS coming out this fall, few dealers decided to stock many of the old ones, so you may have trouble finding many," Timoteo says. "But if you do, you will definitely get a bargain.

"Buyers may, in fact, find the very best bargains on 2004 models right now, when dealers are aiming to unload them to make way for the 2005 vehicles. Most importantly, auto makers generally offer the steepest discounts on models that are being phased out. So buyers who take the time to research which models are being redesigned stand to benefit the most, as a general rule."

Honda, for instance, will launch a redesigned version of its popular Odyssey minivan this fall as a 2005 model. Honda has a special 2.2 per cent lease deal on the 2004 Odyssey for up to 38 months and 3.8 per cent on purchase financing for up to 60 months. That is rare discount for this strong selling minivan.

The secret to finding some of the very best bargains is to know which models the dealers and manufacturers are most anxious to sell.

Topping the list are the slowest-selling cars and trucks, as are models due for a major overhaul or ones scheduled to be discontinued entirely. Astute watchers of what is rolling off the assembly lines can steer themselves to particularly great deals on spanking new vehicles that are about to be restyled or put out to pasture.

Car makers put vehicles through drastic overhauls every four to five years (up to seven years for SUVs and pickup trucks). The ones undergoing a remake or being discontinued for 2005 often come with the most attractive pricing.

Those are models that manufacturers and dealers will most likely be anxious to sell. Call it playing the new-product pipeline. And it is nirvana for customers -- a time when sticker shock is triggered by how fast prices drop, not rise, on the showroom floor.

Be warned, however: incentives change constantly, often without any warning whatsoever. So the deal there today could be gone tomorrow. It is important to stay on top of developments in the market. This is where shopping requires some hard research work, the kind of work that will pay off in the long run.

And never forget to drive a hard bargain. Be aware that many dealers have additional dollars from the manufacturers to play with and they can use that money to cut prices further for you.

In certain instances, buyers will be able to save money by financing the vehicle through the auto maker's own financing arm. It is important, then, to ask about cash bonuses and discounted rates for financing through an automaker's captive finance division.

It is a buyer's market out there and people like Soupourmas are only too happy to take advantage of the deals.

Keys to success

The typical car dealership stays in business selling new vehicles by earning money in three key areas:

The front end, or the difference between what the dealer pays for the car from the factory;

The back end, or all the add-ons you might buy with your new car: Things such as rustproofing, extended warranty protection, financing, life and disability insurance, fabric protection;

The trade-in, which of course is the used car you bring to the deal.

Buyers stand a better chance of getting a great deal if they know the dealer invoice price and are up to date on any factory-to-dealer incentives (cash manufacturers pay only to dealers) and what, if any, the dealer holdback amounts to.

Dealer holdback is a portion of the factory invoice collected by some, but not all manufacturers, and then refunded periodically to dealers.

For a small fee (generally $30 to $40) buyers can obtain the dealer invoice from at least two services in Canada. CarCostCanada.com (http://www.carcostcanada.com) and the Automobile Protection Association (http://www.apa.ca) both sell details on what dealers pay manufacturers for their vehicles, as well as the inside dope on whatever incentives and financing deals are available.

It is important to remember that today's average car dealer is not raking in the kinds of profits so common even a decade ago. In most cases, it's safe to assume dealers generally have just $1,000 to $1,500 to cover sales commissions (25 to 50 per cent of the gross profit on a new vehicle) and their fixed overhead costs. Of course, dealers have other sources of revenue beyond car sales. Service and parts departments, along with body shops, grind out big bottom line bucks for dealerships.

Some of the best deals

2004 Buick regal GS

Price: $37,740 MSRP

The Regal and Buick Century are being replaced this fall with an all-new model called the Allure. So GM is anxious to nove out any remaining2004 Regals and Century models. Comes with: 0 per cent retain financing for up to 60 months; 0.5 per cent leasing rate for up to 60 months, plus $1,300 lease cash. In terms of cash rebates and allowances, a $3,000 non-stackable retail delivery credit/$1,000 stackable retail delivery credit/$1,000 Ring in and Win promotion.

2004 Cadillac XLR

Price: $110,000 MSRP

This luxury roadster is available with $7,000 special dealer delivery credit set to expire at the end of September.

2004 Chevronet Malibu LS

Price: $25,110 MSRP

Launched as an all-newmodel only last year, the Malibu has a recent history of solid quality and good value. It's a better deal thanks to; 0 per cent financing for up to 60 months; 0.5 per cent lease financing for up to 48 months, plus $550 lease cash. In terms of cash rebates and allowances, there is a $1,000 Ring in and Win cash-back rebate.

2004 Chrysler Crossfire

Price: $47,750

A stylish luxury roadster with many Mercedes-Benz parts under the sheet metal. Deals: 0 per cent financing fr up to three years; 2.3 per cent leasing financing for up to three years. In terms of cash rebates and allowances, there is a $4,000 factory-to-dealer allowance.

2004 Dodge Dakota SLT regular cab 4x4

Price: $27,215

An all-new Dakota for 2005 goes on sale this fall, so the outgoing model is a bargain: 0 per cent financing for up to five years, plus $2,000 finance cash when selected with a V-8 engine; 0 per cent lease financing or with the V-8 engine 0 per cent plus $1,000 lease cash. In terms of cash rebates and allowances, there is a $3,000 factory-to-dealer credit or $5,000 factory-to-dealer credit when selected with optional V-8 engine.

2004 Mustang GT convertible

Price: $35,795

For 2005 there is an all-new Mustang, so: 0 per cent financing for three year, plus $1,000 finance cash. In terms of cash rebates and allowances, there is a $1,000 factory-to-dealer credit/$1,000 customer offer.

2004 Hyundai Santa Fe GLS 3.5 AWD

Price: $33,695

With this powerful new engine for 2004, the Santa Fe represents quite a good deal: 0 per cent financing for up to five years. In terms of cash rebates and allowances, there is a $3,000 trading dollars offer.

2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited AWD

Price: $46,035

A restyled and re-engineered Jeep Grand Cherokee will hit showrooms in the coming days and weeks, so the outgoing model comes with: 0 per cent financing for up to five years plus $1,000 finance cash; 0 per cent lease financing for up to four years, plus $1,000 lease cash. In terms of cash rebates and allowances, there is a $6,000 factory-to-dealer allowance.

2004 Mazda Mazda6 GT-V6

Price: $33,098

A relatively slow seller in a tough segment, Mazda is aiming to move this model with 0 per cent financing for up to four months. In terms of cash rebates and allowances, there is a $2,000 trading dollars offer.

2004 Toyota Tacoma Doublecab V6 4x4

Price: $35,200

A new version of this compact pickup arrives as a 2005 model. So to move the 2004: 1.9 per cent financing for three years, 3.9 per cent for four. In terms of cash rebates and allowances, there is a $1,000 non-stackable trading dollars offer.