It wasn’t quite like being able to buy a car on Sunday, but last weekend Chapman Auto Group had a special Sunday sale at its five Tucson dealerships.

Cars were unlocked and shoppers were invited to come by Sept. 2, inspect the vehicles, and pick up information on them, including a "no haggle price." If they liked what they saw, they could call back on Monday.

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New car dealers in Tucson all voluntarily close on Sunday. Dealers don’t discourage potential customers from walking around their dealerships on Sundays but Chapman is the only one that has taken it a step further and opened up the vehicles. Chapman had similar sales last year, in June and November.

It was a good Labor Day promotion said Alex Islas, general sales manager for Chapman Honda, 4646 E. 22nd St. He said he couldn’t say exactly how many cars were sold as a result of the sale "but we know it went very well."

"Labor Day is a good time for doing this," Islas said. "More people are out shopping on Sunday and more people are off on Monday, ready to buy."

But the experiments shouldn’t be read as a signal that Chapman might testing the waters about doing more on Sundays.

"That’s not what we have in mind at all," said Markus Beaumont, director of marketing. "Our position is we’re closed on Sunday. We’ve abided by the gentlemen’s agreement. That’s been in place for some time and it works fine."

Islas said even the special sales won’t be routinely done. Getting all of the dealerships organized to conduct the sale is a complicated process. "It’s just too labor intensive," he said.

Beaumont said, "We look at the sale as just something we can do, from time to time, to take a different tack. We don’t want to do it too often, but the customers like it, so it’s something we’d like to keep doing, probably as sort of an annual thing."

Chapman, based in Chandler, acquired the former Beaudry dealerships in April 2005. It owns 20 dealerships in Arizona and Nevada.

In Tucson, besides the Honda dealership, the company owns Chapman Acura, 4600 E. 22nd St.; Chapman Volkswagen, 4500 E. 22nd St.; Porsche-Audi of Tucson, 4690 E. 22nd St.; and Mercedes-Benz of Tucson, 6001 E. Speedway.