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WTF? Arguing about Hyundai trim levels involving a dollar/torque figure??? You guys need a break or something...
Deslock: My assertion of their profitability at sub $20k is pretty much pulled from my ass. I'm getting impatient for more news, and am trying hard not to rant about Scion, which is what I usually do when it's slow...
But take a base Impreza at $17,500, delete 2 doors and all the stuff involved, awd trans and components, then add DI, speculative Yamaha heads, rwd 6 speed (cost should be less than the AWD 5 speed) and LSD. All at the manufacturers cost, not the dealers real cost, (and certainly not the dealers invoice...). So if they could add those mechanical components for the manufacturers cost of $2500, (includes some of the deleted components too) that's $20K with whatever margin they get off of an Impreza.
So the big key is the tooling for the 'all-new' chassis. But that can be spread out over more than just this car, depending on what they are going to do with it in the future (Lexus IS?), and how long they will keep using it (Subaru tends to keep chassis for a LONG time).
I've heard that Toyota took an early financial hit on the Prius deliberately to help boost their green image. They could do it for their performance image now if they wanted to.
Instead of a multi-million dollar marketing campaign (that will probably suck if the Jack Hollis videos are any indication...), and a dealer cash cow, just make it awesome and cheap so it actually gets to the masses that can market it for them, on its actual performance merits.
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