Quote:
Originally Posted by Sport-Tech
While the ratio of sold to made, and the average time on lot are important stats for automakers, when absolute volume drops below a certain point profitability suffers as certain costs are inelastic with respect to volume even after discounting startup costs. If the refresh does not give sales a nice shot in the arm it's possible Toyota and Subaru might rethink their commitment to a second gen version, depending on where that threshold is.
My prediction for Canada, given the higher cost of the 86 over the base BRZ here this year and the look of the respective facelifts, is that the BRZ will match or possibly even outsell the 86 this model year, provided the volume needed is available to Subaru Canada.
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Profitability is based on selling the number of units planned and built not necessarily on building more units. I repeat as long as they are making what they planned and selling what they make they are fine with it. Sales numbers are something that far too many people focus on since it seems to show trending. It can be very deceiving wh n viewed on it's own. Specialty cars are never built in massive numbers and never will be. They just are not planned as money makers. If they ever start making the 86 or BRZ in Corolla numbers we can kiss the car as we know it goodbye.
Price aside the 86 will still continue to be sold in greater numbers than the BRZ for a few reasons. Right off the bat Toyota has a much larger dealer base than Subaru. I figured it out to be almost 5 to 1. There is no way Subaru can push enough cars through there dealers to outsell Toyota. The second big thing is that Subaru just does not seem to be interested in selling these things in the first place. They want them to draw people in the door where they can sell them a nice high margin WRX or STi.
Unless people have inside info straight from corporate Toyota there is no need to run around screaming the sky is falling based purely on sales number.