[Ryephile]

This topic was stirred around a few months ago. A lot of people have a tough time understanding economies of scale. The Motor Trend article estimated 3k BRZ's a year. That's a pretty low number, even for USA-only consumption. Even if we double that in consideration of FR-S's sold, then make a fudge factor for worldwide sales, we end up with perhaps 12k examples a year. This is very low production for a mass-market player like Toyota. This is why they had to have Subaru slip it into an existing facility.

If the car ends up MSRP'ing for low $20k's, it'll be fantastic. Considering Mazda makes a similiar number of Miatae for mid-to-high $20k's on a platform they have amortized over many years, it makes the cost of the FR-S/BRZ a rather good value.

At this point, it's all up to the MSRP and the marketing to ensure the car is a sales success. The development engineers have done all they can, it's all about convincing people to pony up the dollars now.