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Tiff Needell on Toyota GT86
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Well written!
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Great read, thank you for sharing, OP.
I'm on Tiff's side... Come on all manufacturers! We need you guys to be inspired by this car and its simplicity / beauty / affordabilty, which there is still a demand for... I feel. |
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So yeah, like I had been saying for years, it wasn't that there isn't a market for sports cars anymore, it's that they've just been doing it wrong for so long. They were either too expensive, too impractical/inefficient, too ugly, or just not that good/fun. The Toyota 86/BRZ proves that this was true by doing it right. |
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Realistically, there may not be massive crowds of people who will buy a sports car in the first place. Making them pricier (as you have mentioned) lessens the desire for one even more so. I feel the manufacturers may have been trying too hard to sell performance cars to the masses by placing majority of their focus on making them with more options, more power, and more luxuries / conveniences... In order to try to give customers what they may want to have, and also trying too hard to compete against with what each others competition had to offer. But that in turn diluted the beauty of a sports car, and what it once stood for. It may have accomplished the performance numbers on paper, but it never reached the heart of certain enthusiasts (well, my heart, at least)... And then again comes the steep price tag which makes certain cars only a dream to ever acquire. Yes, you may very well be right on in that Toyota / Subaru has gotten a head start... We can only hope that more manufacturers would jump in (along with some rumors)... Yet what we always would like to happen doesn't have to come true later in our future, and it's best to keep expectations low while being grateful for what has recently been presented to us within the Toyobaru. |
Err... Mazda anyone?
Why does everyone conveniently forget about the Mazda Miata / MX5 in praising the FR-S/GT-86/BRZ? Don't get me wrong, I LIKE the twins but you have to give credit where credit is due and Mazda has been building the Miata forever (well, not really but it's been through 3 generations).
So now on the market, we have the Miata and the Twins as affordable RWD sports cars. I am looking forward to see what the next gen Miata is going to do as we are well due for the next iteration. Long live the tiny RWDs! |
I think it all comes down to people not wanting a sports car. I mean I can sit in a parking lot and count 10 trucks/SUVs for every 1 car. Americans just like big, heavy, useless vehicles. Perhaps the market for affordable sports cars should be directed more towards Europe where everyone drives a manual.
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I will concede that Americans like Big and heavy cars. Every time I talk to someone about it, they mention how their perception of a big SUV or Truck is that it's a larger,safer vehicle that isn't fuel efficient, but is more useful than a small sports car. But useless? Well I guess that depends on what you're trying to do with it. |
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It's never too late. We all thought Toyota was never going to come out with another sports car after killing the Celica, MR2, starlet, Corolla/sprinter/trueno/levin sports coupes/hatchbacks (Trueno BZ-R should have really come to America as a Civic SIR competitor) Soarer & Supra. Just look at Honda, they re-introduced their convertible sports car with the S2000 into the market with little amenities and creature comforts yet it was highly praised and won a few car of the year awards if I'm not mistaken. This was in the wake of the MX-5 dominating the sales of affordable roadsters for the masses; incredibly fun and easy to drive. Even Toyota had a hand at introducing the MR-2 Spyder. Now, doesn't the concept sound a bit like the 86 except it's hardtop coupe? It just takes a daring company to jump into the pool without testing the waters with their toes first. It's been done before and it's being done presently. When someone sets the bar there will always be competition that will shoot for the moon. |
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Lol beat me to it, damn work getting in the way of my forum chatter. |
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He proabably meant to say "completely unecessary." Which I agree with by the way. For 99% of the masses, a truck or SUV is completely unecessary. |
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all is good until OBD3. that will be the death of cars as we know
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I just got back from the 25 Hours of Thunderhill and someone else there, as posted on another forum, says jokingly: There were 72 entries and 91 of them were Miatas.
It is also a common joke in racing (grassroots racing) that the answer to all things racing is: Miata. Part of this is that Miatas are affordable when they're new and cheap when they're used. The S2000, unfortunately was neither. There's a reason why more people are playing with Miatas on any given road racing weekend then any other car. If the S2000 came it at $25-27k MSRP, even if that meant less power or slightly less awesome (but less theft prone) seats, it would have still been a fantastic car and I surmise it would have outsold the Miata. I mean... Imagine a car that is as light as the current model year Miata but costs the same, has 50 more HP, doesn't have a stupid smile on its face and isn't plagued by the (unfair) gay stereotype. It would have sold like crazy. Well, I feel the Scionbaru is that car. Tiff hits the nail on the head and so does Clarkson. You don't need 300-600 Horsepower and flappy paddle gearboxes combined with big sticky tires to have fun. Fun is simple, affordable and can be had with low grip at slower speeds... Something most manufacturers and unfortunately, most consumers have forgotten. And I think this is because both are too caught up in measuring "size" instead of measuring "fun". |
I could never get over the grin my miata had so away it went and here I am. I wasn't nuts about the suspension tuning on it either. The twins feel more stable and have laser like steering. Now I do miss my 99 miata. Maybe I'll get one of those for top down motoring.
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Not sure if any of you heard, but a short while ago Caterham and Renault announced that they would be pulling a Toyota/Subaru stunt and collaborating on a car together.
I'm not a Renault fan but this effort could possibly churn out a fantastic car. And when cars are created as a shared effort, it usually means development costs are shared and the final product being cheaper than if it were developed solely by 1 manufacturer... Fingers crossed they don't cock it up |
Well at this point we can guarantee that there's a new Miata coming and probably an RX-Something once Mazda can make rotaries perform to modern fuel economy expectations, Tada-san said he wants 2 more sports cars in the Toyota lineup, and I bet Nissan would love a piece of the action as well. I also wouldn't completely discount the American companies, everyone is watching how well the 86 is selling.
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------------- Hey, btw, you guys talking about the smile on my last car? :bellyroll: |
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You know I meant small RWD roadsters. The Mustang is not that even though technically, it's not that far off. We're not talking about a Cutlass sized RWD car but buyers simply don't equate the Mustang with a 'small' coupe. |
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Anyway back ontopic...drat.:rolleyes: Forgot what I was gonna say. |
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Come with me on a thought journey. The WRX and STI are available as sedans and hatch backs, but the rally team uses the hatch b/c it rotates better and only weighs 1 lb more. There are already myriad vehicles out there that look the part - VW GTI, Hyundai Veloster, Focus ST, etc etc. Plenty of FWD, practical (ish) vehicles. Why can't they be RWD? I mean, if the Veloster had a slightly firmer suspension, a transmission pointed backwards and a limited slip, it would be a great deal more fun wouldn't it? As would the others, though I have heard to focus ST is so ridiculous that it can stay a hot hatch . But seriously, why can't they make fun, RWD cars that happen to also be short lift-backs? Why is that so damned hard? They could get the sales volume based on the practicality of the vehicle, and without much effort make a performance version with a stick for those of us who want such a thing. I just do not see where the challenge is with this formula. The trick, I think, is to make it not look like a lift-back coupe - the BMW M Coupes have shown that this is not desirable. While some of us love them, and they're dynamically very capable, it doesn't matter much if they never sell any. Make a mass-appeal looking car that happens to have a bit of performance DNA and they'll sell the hell out of it. On that note... where's the RWD V6 stick shift accord coupe? Sigh. |
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