Manufacturers don't care what car you want to buy...

[NCtoBRZ]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

Speak for yourself, I put my money where my mouth is and bought this car new. I might even buy another new one in a few years.

Exactly... those who only buy used have no right to complain about the availability of cars that they like. One of the reasons that I bought the BRZ was to show support for manufacturers who still care to make a proper RWD, manual transmission, lightweight sports car.

[R_E_L]

As others said I bought new to encourage the industry to continue making this type of car. I also made sure to fill out every survey they sent me after my purchase to really drive the point across. Gotta fight the good fight. Before you know it driving your own car will likely become illegal, so I wanna make sure I enjoy this privilege while I can.

[why?]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

Economics have forced the hand of most buyers.

50 years of stagnant wages combined with skyrocketing housing/transportation/education/healthcare costs means that even people who want something fun, can't have it. Plus, fun things are more expensive than ever.

The 86 variants have only crept up in price. Most decent fun things are now in the 30k+ range and that's simply out-of-range for most folks. With tariffs and other factors contributing to increased production costs, this trend will only worsen.

It's no wonder why the used car market has outsold the new car market by a huge margin. New cars under 15k are awful, new cars under 20k are somewhat better but there's nothing "fun".

"Fun" has kind of priced itself out of the market right now.

50 years? I don't think so. Yes wages have not gone up as fast, that is certainly true. But they are not stagnant either.

[rice_classic]

Originally Posted by why?

50 years? I don't think so. Yes wages have not gone up as fast, that is certainly true. But they are not stagnant either.

You say potato, I say potato.

Wages have not kept up with productivity and barely inflation. That's the equivalent to stagnation. Furthermore, the fixed-costs of everyday living have increased (in some cases almost exponentially) in that same time period: childcare, healthcare, housing, energy and education.

The result is that the available money an average person has for discretionary items (non-fixed costs) has only shrunk in that time while the utilization of debt has increased exponentially in tandem to make up for it.

https://www.epi.org/publication/unde...-why-its-real/

The hourly compensation of a typical worker essentially grew in tandem with productivity from 1948 to 1973. After 1973, these series diverge markedly. Between 1973 and 2014 productivity grew 72.2 percent, or 1.33 percent each year, while the typical worker’s compensation was nearly stagnant, growing just 0.22 percent annually, or 9.2 percent over the entire 1973–2014 period. Further, nearly all of the pay growth over this 41-year period occurred during the seven years from 1995 to 2002, when wages were boosted by the very tight labor markets of the late 1990s and early 2000s. This divergence of pay and productivity has meant that the vast majority of workers were not benefiting much from productivity growth; the economy could afford higher pay but was not providing it.

Here's another fun one that compares housing/auto/education costs from 1950 to 2014.
http://www.mybudget360.com/cost-of-l...-cars-college/


EPI has 9 charts to illustrate stagnation:
Stagnant wages for middle-wage workers, declining wages for low-wage workers

Over the entire 34-year period between 1979 and 2013, the hourly wages of middle-wage workers (median-wage workers who earned more than half the workforce but less than the other half) were stagnant, rising just 6 percent—less than 0.2 percent per year. This wage growth, in fact, occurred only because wages grew in the late 1990s when labor markets got tight enough—unemployment, for instance, fell to 4 percent in 1999 and 2000—to finally deliver across-the-board hourly wage growth. The wages of middle-wage workers were totally flat or in decline over the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, except for the late 1990s. The wages of low-wage workers fared even worse, falling 5 percent from 1979 to 2013. In contrast, the hourly wages of high-wage workers rose 41 percent.

[SuperTom]

Manufactures do care. Everybody wants SUVs, trucks so that's what they are building.


Enthusiasts only represent a very tiny % of the population.


I hate to say it but the only thing to stop the trend would be a huge spike in gas prices. Like 2008 when people were selling off SUV's for pennies on the dollar

[Swift]

I find it how ironic where before the last recession there was HUMMER etc because people wanted big trucks(toyota FJ too) and guess what......BAM!......everyone needs/wants small cars because of recession. It will happen again. Mark my words. Two years tops.

The cycle begins again. So I need a truck(work related and I live in the country) so I am just doing research on what I want, waiting for a prices to drop out. It was reportedly already happening last fall, to many trucks on market because they over built even.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Swift

I find it how ironic where before the last recession there was HUMMER etc because people wanted big trucks(toyota FJ too) and guess what......BAM!......everyone needs/wants small cars because of recession. It will happen again. Mark my words. Two years tops.

The cycle begins again. So I need a truck(work related and I live in the country) so I am just doing research on what I want, waiting for a prices to drop out. It was reportedly already happening last fall, to many trucks on market because they over built even.

We have made more rotors for pickups this year than 2014 and 15 combined. The orders are scheduled to keep rising over the next three years. The lot hold for me pickups from all three big leaders is running at about 16 days. They are a bit panicky because they like to have at least 20 of stock. Pickups are selling in record numbers so not sure where you researched that sales were dropping. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting on prices to drop. If they do drop it will be because of a price war since both Ford and Chrysler want to be able to claim to be the best seller. The war is just heating up and the buyers will be the winners.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by SuperTom

Manufactures do care. Everybody wants SUVs, trucks so that's what they are building.


Enthusiasts only represent a very tiny % of the population.


I hate to say it but the only thing to stop the trend would be a huge spike in gas prices. Like 2008 when people were selling off SUV's for pennies on the dollar

But that still wouldn't help the sports car build since those people would then turn to more fuel friendly econo boxes and crossovers.

[SuperTom]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

But that still wouldn't help the sports car build since those people would then turn to more fuel friendly econo boxes and crossovers.

True but at least in would get those suvs out of my sight of vision!

[ZDan]

*manufacturers

[rice_classic]

I think the people running car companies today have it very difficult, maybe more so than their predecessors from decades ago.

CEOs are facing:
- Fuel prices that have fluctuated a lot in the last 4-5 years.
- Emissions regulation and EV subsidies that are a moving target from one election to another.
- Declining brand loyalty
- Trade agreements that throw serious operational/cost curveballs
- Rapid change in demand
- Cost of new cars increasing while avg person discretionary spending is decreasing.
- Increasing threat of a driverless future combined with change in propulsion (EV/Hybrid/Hydrogen/etc).


It is absolutely harder than ever for a company to navigate ALL of that and still produce something that blows our skirts up. We do have several options that are fun if you have 30-40k to spend - ST/STI/RS/TypeR/Miata/86 -etc etc.

To reference the title of the thread "Manufacturers don't care what car you want to buy" should be retitled to "Manufacturers can't make a profit selling you the car you want at the price you want it to be and at the volume it will ultimately sell."

[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

It is absolutely harder than ever for a company to navigate ALL of that and still produce something that blows our skirts up. We do have several options that are fun if you have 30-40k to spend - ST/STI/RS/TypeR/Miata/86 -etc etc.

If I had money I'd be trying everything to get the SO to try a TypeR and drive stick, and I'd threaten to buy your Honda and go racing if she decided against it

"It's the perfect 4 cylinder hatchback for the family honey!"

[rice_classic]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

If I had money I'd be trying everything to get the SO to try a TypeR and drive stick, and I'd threaten to buy your Honda and go racing if she decided against it

"It's the perfect 4 cylinder hatchback for the family honey!"

I just lowered the price of my Honda too. It would cost ~3x the price I'm selling it for to build it. For the price of the TypeR, you could purchase and race my CRX for 3+years. Sharing a race car with your wife is good for the marriage.

Lots of the folks here do it (husband/wife racing).

[finch1750]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

I was thinking about Ford giving up on producing sedans, and about the fall of manual transmissions in America, and I naturally asked myself: do manufactures care what features car buyers want in a car, specifically, do they care what car enthusiasts like me want? And I realized quickly the answer is no.

You realize the irony in writing this on a car forum that exists because a car was built with tons of input from enthusiasts right?