Quote:
Originally Posted by HKz
to be fair, the automatic trans (and to a lesser extent the MT) in the twins do sorta have a tie to the IS ^^
I think what is at least promising is that instead of tossing the IS away like they did with the GS, they were still willing to spend some money to freshen it up and most likely bring a new powertrain as a last hoorah.
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Well the GS sort of occupied the same space as the ES. Converging them to a single model probably would have made the most sense, but ones a FWD and the other is RWD. Obviously the GS got the axe cuz the ES sells a ton more, and i guess to help mitigate any losses they'd have to make the ES handle better (as it usually is just the old mans boat vs the athletic GS). I dont know if the ES has and can ever replace the GS outright but its a far more dynamic car than it ever was to help shrink that gap between the two.
Now the IS...if they killed it off they'd have nothing in the compact luxury sport sedan market. The IS was never really a terrible seller (sells way more than the GS ever had) but it fills a market segment that they need. The problem now is that the IS is old, and apparently a next generation model isnt gonna be out for a few years (if it continues), so this new one is a stopgap refresh that hopefully keeps some sales volume going.