My brother worked at a car dealership a few years ago. He'd sometimes have people driving some 20+ year old economy car asking to test drive a Nissan GT-R. When he told them they would have to run a credit check before even doing the test drive, the customers changed their mind.

Did he perhaps lose a couple possibly genuine sales? Maybe, but likely not.

Heck, I wanted to create an appointment to test drive a Subaru BRZ and I had to put down a $500 deposit to "reserve the car so they don't sell it before then", which would have been 100% refundable if I chose not to buy the car. I did end up buying the car, but they never charged a deposit at all. My brother said that they probably never even actually recorded my credit card number anywhere, and the supposed requirement for a deposit exists purely to eliminate joy riders.