Originally Posted by dwmilton
Something about Subaru limiting the availability rings hollow with me. Not saying it ain't happening, I just have a gut feeling it won't last long. Not long at all.
At least for this model year I believe they will try to artificially limit supply to increase demand. That of course, isn't long considering truly rare cars are produced in far lower numbers, don't have sister vehicles released by another brand, and usually have two year waiting lists.
People cite supply & demand, but there's also risk for the makers. Toyota & Subaru have a pretty good investment in this car, and want to maximize profit on it. You don't maximize profit by gashing a relative few people, on a modestly priced item. We're not talking a $90,000 Porsche, here.
Is it possible that building these for Toyota is enough profit for Subaru and as such, they don't really have a NEED to sell this car as much as they WANT/COULD sell this car?
We all know the gestation of the car has been drawn out. Think about all the cars we see travelling around to US dealerships. As has been said before; all the auto shows, the dealer reveals, Greddy showing a modded car, the pre-orders & "First 86" program. I just refer to all the above as the "hype".
It seems the great majority of the test drives I've read have been done in Japan. Why? We know the cars exist stateside. I haven't read of a single instrumented test performed by a US magazine, yet the car lands in the next few months. I feel it's being very carefully orchestrated by the makers to gauge the full sales potential for the platform, and to get buyers lined up five wide & thirty deep to own one of these fun, AFFORDABLE, sports cars. They want to emphasize rarity. Afterall, those guys had to fly all the way to Japan to test the car, right?
Back to economics. Supply & demand. If all the stores near you run out of Coke, or jack the price up, at what point do you stop ignoring Pepsi? I don't think Subaru & Toyota are creating a buying frenzy, to sit back and watch a decent percentage of potential buyers get upset & go shop a Genesis coupe, GTI, Miata, 370Z, V6 Mustang, Civic Si, or whatever.
To address all of the above: something's brewing for sure. They're playing the market to create demand, but truly how many people's attention are they getting? Us enthusiasts in the know are few and there hasn't been aggressive marketing outside of that community, at all I think. Either the price is going to suck or there's another ulterior motive, though I couldn't imagine what that is. We can't be the whole market for this car, or it will die a fast death. There's been little marketing outside of word of mouth; this has to be the ugliest launch of a new car I've seen in a while. There's something else happening behind the scenes that's at work here. The new GenCoupe prices came out and we're still without a price. Subaru knows the enthusiasts will buy the car up to a certain point and having people in line with deposits makes them more willing to buy a car that's more expensive than initially projected, BUT that makes no sense in gaining overall market share/sales. Perhaps they aren't interested in selling this car? I keep coming to this conclusion...
I'd like to know what the production capacity of the plant is. I'd like to see "spy" photos of the parking areas around the factory. I haven't seen any reports of tours to the factory. When I Google-searched for BRZ photos, it seems like there's a lot of them in dealer showrooms in Japan. I feel in my gut that the cars are out there; Subaru/Toyota just want it to seem otherwise. I wanna hear from someone on the ground in Japan; what's up?
The only thing I can say on this is that this car comes out in March for Japan; I imagine they're busy building them for that market right now as demand was initially high and both companies expect demand to stay high.
I'm guessing that once the initial batches of the cars are snapped up from the dealers, we'll hear of "increased production" to meet demands and such. The second & third wave of deliveries will easily meet demand. Toyota & Subaru aren't dumb. They need to recoup on the R&D costs. They want to sell 40,000 of these things, not 10,000. All new engine, excepting a few bolts; all new platform, excepting a couple suspension bits here & there. You don't recoup that by selling a modestly priced car in limited quantities. You build demand to a writhing level, then you give the consumer what they are begging you to take their money for.
See above. Here's my baseless theory: they aren't interested in selling the car here, but are doing so simply because they can. This platform isn't their interest; adapting new technology and what was learned from this into future models is where the bread and butter is.
On a last note. The offerings (US market) are pretty streamlined. Three cars (FR-S BRZ-P, BRZ-L), two tannys, eight total paint colors; seven per brand. 14 possible combinations for the FR-S, 28 for the BRZ; 42 total for the USDM. That's not a ton of variety. "First 86"? They could build seven each of every possible combination, and have it covered. Of course they'd use market research, etc. to know what the most & least popular combinations are. My point is: All those cars could very well already be built, just waiting to be shipped. You ship the First 86 cars, and the pre orders, you hold back others. If there's an odd run on what marketing predicted to be a low volume combination, well those are the people that have to wait for the second wave. Hey, it's a limited production car afterall, huh?
Just my rambling thoughts. Lemme know if this needs to be moved somewhere more appropriate.
Appropriate place. Your thoughts are cohesive and fluent, please continue posting.
/rant
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