Toyobaru: Magic or Smoke and Mirrors?

Not wanting to derail the thread about Nino Karotta traversing Europe in an FRS video, I thought I should start a new thread.

After seeing the video and having the FRS in the stable for just over a month now, I have to agree with most of what Nino Karotta's video has to say about this car. It is fun. But so what. It is just a car. All cars are fun.

On a more interesting note, and NOT wanting to get into a discussion about Toyobarus being better or not than other cars, I would like to take a moment to reflect on all the media hoopla that this car has garnered. This video is but one good example.

The competition to this car, all combined, have not collected a drop in the bucket of media attention compared to the tsunami of press that has been accorded the Twins. As someone who has to make stuff that people will want to buy, I am more fascinated by this aspect than I am by the car itself. Yes it is a fun car, but how the hell did they orchestrate the circus of attention compared to the Mustang and 370Z and Genesis opposition? Can the hive delve into its own psyche and expose the circuit that acts as a receptor to this phenomena so I can understand?

Or is it just magic?

I'm not into the toybarus, and haven't paid a whole lot of attention to the car or the hype, but I do know that Toyota has one heck of a marketing ability.

Four things:

1. They promised a successor to an icon.

2. They promised this product from before the competition came out with similar things.

3. They overpromised (basically that the car would weight a sportbike-with-a-fat-dude-on-it less than it does...even in GT5 the FR-S concept was 2000lbs!)

4. They delivered a product that is at least on par with the competition so those promises weren't horribly unfulfilled.

They pushed the "InitialD" button Everyone knows the AE86 is the fastest, most capable car ever. Add in the Subaru connection and the initial expectation was very high. Then they dragged out the introduction FOREVER - about the only other car that had such a long public gestation was probably the new Camaro. So the internet forums just worked themselves into a frothing frenzy.

The big difference with it and the Mustang/370Z/Genesis is that it's an all-new car. The Mustang has never gone away, so a new Mustang is just a new Mustang. The 370Z is just a rework of the 350Z to most people's eyes. And the Genesis has no backstory.

It was well done.

I think the original concept garnered a lot of attention. It seems like they have kept the fans in the loop through the whole process. Teasing at every opportunity. The mustang and the 370z are really just extensions of old models at least in the minds of most. The genesis was original, but largely has to overcome the stigma of the name Hyundai. While I think Hyundai has come a long way, many people still regard the brand with disdain. Subaru has a large cult following as does the ae-86, and ultimately they combined the two fanbases. Great marketing, great viral marketing. All the marketing doesn't about to a hill of beans if the product ultimately sucks. Fortunately it's a good product with exceptional marketing. Yet you won't know it's success until they have the sales numbers in hand.

I swear I didn't see Keith's post before I composed mine.

Yep if the last Mustang was made in the '80s (let's say it was the best Mustang for the sake of argument), then Ford made bland appliances for two decades and then said they'd make a new Mustang, you'd probably see the same thing.

It's the Coke/New Coke/Coke Classic effect on a much larger timescale.

sachilles wrote: I swear I didn't see Keith's post before I composed mine.

We're obviously both very intelligent people

New Coke trivia: my wife had no idea why it said "classic" on the cans. She'd never heard of the whole thing!

Another reason I think that may have spawned the hype: Toyota's other product lineup and behavior in the past five years or so had led to a lot of the enthusiast community convinced there was no way in Hell they'd actually build such a thing. The final product was so un-Toyota-like that when it actually came out, everyone was shocked.

Not sure where I was that I missed this AE 86 thing? Must of been in my offshore boat phase. I can see the craft in pulling from a historied past to attract new fans.

I don't see a lot of cars actually moving off the Canadian lots. It could be because it is being perceived as a summer only vehicle and hence a "Toy" rather than transportation. Anyone hear if this noise is carrying over to actual sales in the rest of the world?

Keith wrote: Then they dragged out the introduction FOREVER - about the only other car that had such a long public gestation was probably the new Camaro. So the internet forums just worked themselves into a frothing frenzy.

That's because internet forums have no concept of how long it takes to go from concept to production. Most cars are about 4-5 years, and they are developed in secret first, then the concept is shown. This one had the concept shown and people went nuts for it so they went ahead with it. But that takes time and revisions and engineering reality, as well as producing the tooling and setting up the supply chain. So the Camaro and Frisbee (a cute name I heard for the FR-S/BRZ) got people that don't know how long it takes to produce a car all frothy that it wasn't ready yet thinking that it was taking forever when it was taking a normal time span.

And it's supposedely a return to the kind of sport coupe that had been gone for a decade (nearly a thousand lbs lighter than the Mustang, RWD, bespoke chassis, with agility and handling the primary focus. The kind of car enthusiasts say they want, but will only buy used...

I think Keith nailed this one. Intial-D played a big part in getting this car to market. (at least according to the Execs at Scion) Remember, before Intial-D, the AE 86 was a forgotten car to nearly everyone who isn't on this forum.

This, combined with Toyota's head boss wanting desperately to infuse some "passion" into their line-up gave reason for the go-ahead.

I don't think Scion or Subaru had much of a hand in the pre-production hype, it was more organic than that. Young people (in general) are online most often, young people were also influenced by Inital-D and put the AE-86 on a very high pedestal. These kids helped spread the word (and mis-information) about the car to forums worldwide. This caused interest, arguments, and debate. Then the concept was shown, it looked good and the hype gathered steam.

Fortunately the car lived up to the hype and is a far, far better car than it's highly touted predecessor ever was. It also came in at a very reasonable price. Keep in mind $26K in today's money is about $12K in 1987. The Corolla GTS had a MSRP of just over $10K. So for just a little more $$ than the original would cost, you have a much better performing car in every way.

it is rare that a car company has the balls to build something that only appeals to the kind of people that this car attracts. specifically, and from the ground up.

Keith nailed it. There was a lot of hoopla over the Z when it returned too. Now it's just another bubble on a highway full of them. As for the toyobarus, they're a lot better looking than anything either company has in the stable, they appear to be fun to drive, and are RWD. Hell of a lot more exciting than a new appliance....or a new Mustang for that matter.

They engaged the flat-brimmers.

I think some of it has to do with the fact that Toyota was such a huge player in the inexpensive sports car market in the 90s (and 80s) and just dropped off the performance map for the last decade and a half. In my experience, there are a LOT of fans of the old Toyota sports cars that are really excited to see anything like this come out of a company they used to love.

Simple - 'Yota, a world renouned "Sports Car" manufacturer, ceased the production of anything fun, and exclusively built vanilla people haulers for the better part of a decade.

Then, they started making fun cars again - Its not that the FR-S is something so exhilaratingly original that it couldnt help but become a phenomenon. It is that they decided finally to fill an epic void that we had all been dying to see filled for years and years...we couldnt help but be excited to see their return to sporting pretense.

EDIT:
DOH, Mr Hachi beat me to it by 1 minute

The extended appearance of this car was done on purpose - just like the Camaro. Heck, how long was it between the Camaro starred in the Transformers movie and it actually became available for sale? I just looked it up: two years. That one backfired a bit in my opinion. By the time they showed up on the roads, they were already a bit too familiar.

The early concept car unveiling for the Frisbee (awesome name) was not an accident, that was done to get the buzz going. It's possible for a manufacturer to keep a model secret (or at least low profile) until it's released. If Mazda comes out with a new RX7, for example, I would be surprised if there was more than six months before the first sanctioned unveiling and production.

I got to see a Frisbee for the first time when I was in Paris last week. The Toyota showroom on the Champs Elysee has a Le Mans Hybrid (I couldn't find any pieces of DeltaWing stuck in it), an electric 2000GT and a couple of the GT86 cars. Cute enough, nice size - I'd like to try one.

NOHOME wrote: I would like to take a moment to reflect on all the media hoopla that this car has garnered. This video is but one good example.

If it wasn't for this forum, I would have never heard about it. I am not a typical consumer of media, but I have never heard, read or seen a single thing about the car outside this forum.

Other than us and a few hundred thousand car geeks online, how big a splash has this made? I don't see any print or media ads outside of car related publications. I'll bet if I asked at work, I could count the number of people who knew about this car on both hands and feet, if that. Yes it's cool, but to call it a marketing success is a bit of a stretch. Let's wait and see if Subaru and Toyota see any sales bump.

NOHOME wrote: It is fun. But so what. It is just a car. All cars are fun.

I find fault with this position.

Maybe driving is fun no matter what you are in, but for sure some vehicles just seem to encourage more fun-having.

I really like the idea of the BRZ. It's what the RX-8 (and, IMO, the FD) should have been.

I never heard or saw any InitialD connection at all, but I believe it's the Subaru connection.

Toyota was so far off the charts from the standpoint of likeable, fun cars that it was felt that Subaru would actually make it have a chance of happening.

Without Subie in the pic I'd have never believed one word of the Toyo propaganda machine on this car.

Oh, and the RWD thing! That's news all by itself in the sea of FWD clones.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the seemingly organic support and buzz about these cars has not been aided, orchestrated, and molded by clever marketing people at Scion. They did that when the original Xa and Xb came out. Then did it again with the Tc. They hired cool kids that were the trendsetters to sing the praises of the things, to blog about them, etc. Scion sponsored events at clubs in cool hipster parts of cities. They did a lot of slick marketing and it worked pretty well. I assume that the hype this time is partly due to the car and partly due to a slick underground marketing scheme that makes kids think that a mass produced vehicle by arguably the most staid appliance building car company is the coolest thing on wheels.

T.J. wrote: a mass produced vehicle by arguably the most staid appliance building car company is the coolest thing on wheels.

And therein is why I believe the Subie connection made it seem believable. You already had a whole crowd of younguns who believed the WRX was the second coming.

carguy123 wrote: I never heard or saw any InitialD connection at all, but I believe it's the Subaru connection. Toyota was so far off the charts from the standpoint of likeable, fun cars that it was felt that Subaru would actually make it have a chance of happening. Without Subie in the pic I'd have never believed one word of the Toyo propaganda machine on this car. Oh, and the RWD thing! That's news all by itself in the sea of FWD clones.

The Toyota version is called the GT86. Hard to miss the AE86 connection there