Not really related but the practicality line made me think...
Last night I drove my 2 kids (9, 12) two dogs (20lb medium sized), a trunk loaded with my full frame backpack, climbing gear, pistol, baseball bats / gloves, 60lb bag of dog food and a case of beer all over town for dinner, supplies, batting practice and to the dog park for a run.
In a 20yr old 911 C2.
In reply to 93EXCivic:
Good for them. Now if they can convince the rest of the country that is going to buy 14.5M cars this year, you'd be onto something.
If it won't sell 500,000+ units a year, most manufactures won't build it. With crash laws and emissions requirements becoming more and more ridiculous, cars take longer to develop and cost more to build. There are exceptions of course, but volume is the key.
93EXCivic wrote:alfadriver wrote:One of them just bought a Scion tC and another is looking for an MR-S.93EXCivic wrote:People like to talk. Based on what actually sells, it's just that. When push comes to shove, not all that many people are willing to give up practicality for fun. Or at least to the degree a sports car makes you do that.alfadriver wrote:I know all my friends talk about wanting sports cars (or hot hatches or sport sedans) and they aren't car people (they are engineers though). And most everyone I have talked remembers that fun car they owned over all the boring ones.93EXCivic wrote: I don't understand why sports cars don't sell. I mean no one wakes up in the morning dreaming of owning a Camry.I think you overestimate the number of people who get up dreaming of driving in the first place.
Can he/would he be willing to stretch his budget from $8k to $30-$35k?
92CelicaHalfTrac wrote:93EXCivic wrote:Can he/would he be willing to stretch his budget from $8k to $30-$35k?alfadriver wrote:One of them just bought a Scion tC and another is looking for an MR-S.93EXCivic wrote:People like to talk. Based on what actually sells, it's just that. When push comes to shove, not all that many people are willing to give up practicality for fun. Or at least to the degree a sports car makes you do that.alfadriver wrote:I know all my friends talk about wanting sports cars (or hot hatches or sport sedans) and they aren't car people (they are engineers though). And most everyone I have talked remembers that fun car they owned over all the boring ones.93EXCivic wrote: I don't understand why sports cars don't sell. I mean no one wakes up in the morning dreaming of owning a Camry.I think you overestimate the number of people who get up dreaming of driving in the first place.
She bought the tC new.
Over 68,000 Mustangs were sold in 2011.
93EXCivic wrote:92CelicaHalfTrac wrote:She bought the tC new.93EXCivic wrote:Can he/would he be willing to stretch his budget from $8k to $30-$35k?alfadriver wrote:One of them just bought a Scion tC and another is looking for an MR-S.93EXCivic wrote:People like to talk. Based on what actually sells, it's just that. When push comes to shove, not all that many people are willing to give up practicality for fun. Or at least to the degree a sports car makes you do that.alfadriver wrote:I know all my friends talk about wanting sports cars (or hot hatches or sport sedans) and they aren't car people (they are engineers though). And most everyone I have talked remembers that fun car they owned over all the boring ones.93EXCivic wrote: I don't understand why sports cars don't sell. I mean no one wakes up in the morning dreaming of owning a Camry.I think you overestimate the number of people who get up dreaming of driving in the first place.
I mean the MR-S person...
The tC isn't really what i would call "relevant" to the scenario. (Though i would probably be ecstatic with one as a DD)
In reply to 92CelicaHalfTrac:
He may take out a loan and look at a FR-S or Abarth (he has $10k to put towards a car plus trade in). The tC was bought because she wanted a sporty car and she could only get a her dad's Toyota employee discount for another month and wouldn't be able to get an FR-S in time.
ultraclyde wrote: The more practical it is, the better it will sell.
Dear Wives and Girlfriends of America,
I'm writing to plead you to cease and desist this manic adherance to the Female Code of Practicality. Men across the US yearn for exciting, engaging cars that toss practicality to the wind in favor of the adrenaline rush induced by taking that sweeping right hander down by the ball field at ten tenths. Your dominance over your significant others on dealership showroom floors across America has driven the affordable sports car from our shores.
I beg you, think of him. He's already got the golf clubs; in a sports car, he'd have to put them in the passenger seat, so you'd never have to worry about him picking up that pretty young blonde you found pictures of saved on the harddrive.
Sincerely,
JIK
Fiero:
1984: 136,840
1985: 76,371
1986: 83,974
1987: 46,581
1988: 26,243
To clarify about referencing sales volumes, selling in volumes and making profits aren't necessarily the same thing. Makes it a lot easier to get profit with volume, but not necessarily a direct correlation, so hard to use volume as justification why a car company could/would/should build something.
Bryce
alfadriver wrote: Not sure how you do the math where 40k units makes much money at $30k, unless it shares a LOT of stuff with cars you make in 500k-1M a year.
Well Datsun/Nissan and Mazda certainly were able to make money at it. 
Osterkraut wrote: If cheap sports cars sold (aka: are profitable), they'ed make them. The car companies aren't in some global conspiracy to deny you cars. You honestly think that in a word where car companies fight for tenths of a percent, there aren't people trying every permutation possible?
Apparently you haven't heard of two all-new sportscars being made? The Scion FR-S and the Subaru BRZ? 
I find it funny how sales go up if you throw a ridiculously undersized set of rear seats in - even though it means that the motor has to be further forward - see the Toybaru twins.
I'm surprised there isn't more use of multiple vehicles on the same platform. Don't the RX8 and Miata each have unique chasis? Theoretically you could run a Sedan, GT and sports car off the same platform and engines. Sure, the chasis would be over-engineered for the sports car ap, but I'd rather pay a 100 lb. weight penalty and have a very rigid structure than not have the car made at all.
Javelin wrote: Seems to me whenever an affordable sports car hit the market it sells like hotcakes. When it gets pricier the sales fall off dramatically.
FWIW, the Z-cars weren't -particularly- cheap, and IIRC my RX-7 retailed for close to $20k... in 1984.
Javelin wrote:alfadriver wrote: Not sure how you do the math where 40k units makes much money at $30k, unless it shares a LOT of stuff with cars you make in 500k-1M a year.Well Datsun/Nissan and Mazda certainly were able to make money at it.
Sure.... probably not a LOT of it, though, and highly unlikely that they could have been considered their "bread and butter."
Car companies don't exist by just making "some money." They exist by making "lots of money." I doubt the Miata or RX7 ever did much for Mazda other than make "some money" and lots of "brand recognition."
Gearheadotaku wrote: If it won't sell 500,000+ units a year, most manufactures won't build it. With crash laws and emissions requirements becoming more and more ridiculous, cars take longer to develop and cost more to build. There are exceptions of course, but volume is the key.
Oh really? Just on unique platforms alone there's let's see... Corvette, Camaro, Mustang, FR-S/BRZ, MX-5, every Porsche ever built...
Even the shared ones don't hit those numbers (370Z / Infiniti G, etc).
kreb wrote: I'm surprised there isn't more use of multiple vehicles on the same platform. Don't the RX8 and Miata each have unique chasis?
The NC Miata and the RX8 share a platform. Things like subframes, hubs and sway bars swap back and forth. Amazingly, the NA/NB Miata shares very little with other Mazdas. There was a proposal out there for a 323-based FWD version (like the Ford Capri), but thankfully it didn't go that way.
What do the numbers for the BMW Z3/Z4 look like?
Javelin wrote:Gearheadotaku wrote: If it won't sell 500,000+ units a year, most manufactures won't build it. With crash laws and emissions requirements becoming more and more ridiculous, cars take longer to develop and cost more to build. There are exceptions of course, but volume is the key.Oh really? Just on unique platforms alone there's let's see... Corvette, Camaro, Mustang, FR-S/BRZ, MX-5, every Porsche ever built... Even the shared ones don't hit those numbers (370Z / Infiniti G, etc).
Highlighted key phrase.
ShadowSix wrote: Plenty of people will buy an impractical car, the marketers just have to convince them it will make them cool.
Hell, the marketers just have to convince them that it's practical.
Friend's wife wanted an SUV. Needed third row seating, everything else was wants. After they had it a while, she didn't like the poor visibility out especially when parking, and when she asked me why the truck jumped and was hard to steer in 4wd, and I told her the facts of life re: 4wd, she said "Well, what the hell good is it then if I have to shift in and out all the time?"
Long story short, I may be getting a cheap Durango.
Nashco wrote: Fiero: 1984: 136,840 1985: 76,371 1986: 83,974 1987: 46,581 1988: 26,243 To clarify about referencing sales volumes, selling in volumes and making profits aren't necessarily the same thing. Makes it a lot easier to get profit with volume, but not necessarily a direct correlation, so hard to use volume as justification why a car company could/would/should build something. Bryce
The Fiero was an entirely different story. It was such a horrid hunk of crap when it came out in '84 that no matter what Pontiac did with it, the car was pretty much doomed. Damn shame too, because by '87/'88 they had gotten it to be a decent car in GT form.
Javelin wrote:Osterkraut wrote: If cheap sports cars sold (aka: are profitable), they'ed make them. The car companies aren't in some global conspiracy to deny you cars. You honestly think that in a word where car companies fight for tenths of a percent, there aren't people trying every permutation possible?Apparently you haven't heard of two all-new sportscars being made? The Scion FR-S and the Subaru BRZ?
Oh so those are considered a success already, are they? In 2004 there were two all new (actual sports cars, the FR-S has a back seat) sports cars launched, too. They uh, sold like gangbusters, right?
The next time you walk through a parking lot, take a look inside the cars at all the crap people haul around with them on a daily basis.
'Cheap sports cars don't sell.' Huh. Coulda fooled me. Going up to 1980:
Over 18 years, MG sold over half a million B's, Triumph over 300,000 Spitfires. Austin sold almost 305,000 Sprites. Fiat sold 200,000 124 Spiders and 160,000 X 1/9's. That's ~1.5 million cars, or an average of nearly 84,000 yearly. Sure, that's a drop in the bucket compared to regular old passenger car production but it's nothing to sniff at.
We haven't added in the Z car numbers yet. Or the TR6/7. Or the 79-80 RX7 (I wouldn't include the 3rd gen, which was a helluva car but couldn't be considered cheap).
The Jensen Healey was on the pricey side of inexpensive in the 1970s ($8k in the US) and still sold over 10k in 4 years, which given their sales growth each year could have surpassed the Spitfire's numbers had production continued (Jensen had orders backed up like crazy but ran out of money).
Sports cars got bigger and heavier in the '80's (280ZX, Supra, etc) and that certainly had something to do wth the drop in sales. In 1989, Mazda tapped into that pent up demand for a true sports car and the result is automotive history. The Miata still sells well, otherwise Mazda would have quit with it. FWIW, I don't consider the FWD Celicas to be sports cars, just gussied up transport (ducks bullets, rocks & bottles from Celica faithful).
A sports car SOUNDS awesome to own, but so far, i'm giving the overall experience a solid MEH.
Im surprised this didnt resonate more. I sort of agree.
I think the main hangup is not the impracticality of an individual car per se.. To me the main issue is most people not wanting to own many cars. If you limit yourself to one or two vehicles and insist on buying expensive ones (i.e. anywhere close to new), you have to justify them, and you usually do that with reasons of practicality.
So to me the real holdup is people being stuck on only owning one or two cars. The idea (fact?) that some sporty cars are more practical than others and sell more for it only comes at that issue from the side. Sporty car sales would go up DRAMATICALLY if more people believed they could replace their one or two expensive, jack-of-all-trades vehicles with 3 or 4 more specialized vehicles that only added up to the same price or less.
I have 13 cars. I spend less on my car hobby per month or year than most non-car-people pay on their car loan. My situation is certainly not the ideal or the happy medium, but if you have a family and you believe you should only own 2 vehicles, you'll always struggle to fit a sports car into that mindset.
I think the practicality point is huge. I sold cars (Ford) for a period. Everyone loved the Mustang and lots of people were in the market with needs that would have been satisfied by it. Most people didn't like that the back seats would not work for long trips with adults. (Really how often is that needed?) The trunk is pretty good. It was to the point where even though it was the car they really wanted they couldn't handle the minor compromises. In my mind for many people it was a no brainer to spend slightly more than a focus and get a Mustang, or spend about the same and loose a little practicality over a Fusion. I realize it wouldn't work for all people, but it would work for a a decent chunk.
Even the Escape, the number of people who stated initial concerns about its rear seat size was crazy. They were often concerned about their kids having enough room. I'd have to show them that I was 6'5" and had ample head and leg room with the front seat all the way back. Even then there would often be people who were on the fence as to whether there was "enough" room for their 10 year old. The idea of "enough" head room is really odd to me. It seems to mean ~4" for most people. I've never had that so perhaps that's why I can't understand it. :)
Lack of back seat altogether is a complete non-started with people. I don't understand why. If you have a 2 seater, drive your spouses car when you want to transport a group. In other scenarios you can take the other people's car or they can drive themselves (darn moochers!).
RWD is another factor. People don't understand it, but are frightened of it in colder climates and can't understand how it could work effectively.. Last year we had a freak event with almost 4' of snow in 24 hours. The office was closed for 3 days. I went in all 3 days. I had people telling me how bad my car must be in the snow, yet they knew I was one of 3-4 that made it in, never mind that to do so I literally drove around CUV/SUVs stuck in the snow.
I have trouble believing the BRZ/FR-S will sell in large quantities. We've seen the RX-8 and S2000 (both with similar focus) post initially positive numbers and then drop until they are pulled from the market. The pricing of the RX-8 was almost identical to the BRZ/FR-S. The Mustang is a hard enough sell and it's far more practical and less of a sports car.
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