TTAC: "6000 Units/Year a Canard"

[oneday]

TTAC Publishes Exclusive Picture Of Supply-Constrained Subaru BRZ

Originally Posted by TTAC

Merriam-Webster Definition of CANARD: a false or unfounded report or story

Car & Driver horrified lovers of unadulterated driving fun with the news that “just 6000 Subaru BRZ sports cars will be allocated to the U.S. for the 2013 model year.” The source of that report is somehow suspect: “A Subaru dealer.” Car and Driver’s telephone budget must have been cut. The magazine consulted Subaru’s website that says that the BRZ will be built in “extremely limited quantities.” Car and Driver also checked with an old C&D article that said that “Subaru thinks that 5000 * to 7000 per year would be enough.” Thus having performed its journalistic duty, Car and Driver ran with the story of a BRZ that will be available in homeopathic quantities only. Which, I assume, should trigger a run at dealerships.

A similar canard had been published last November by the fansite ft86club.com. It comes as no surprise that this time also, FT86club.com immediately jumped on the Car and Driver story.

Time to make some calls.

Spokespeople at Subaru were very busy today, preparing for an event on Friday. Finally, Subaru spokesman Masato Saito was dragged out of a meeting and said that these rumors are not “based on official information by FHI (Fuji Heavy Industries).” He did not want to comment further.

Time to call Toyota. Toyota produces its “hachi-roku” (Toyota 86 in Japan, GT 86 in Europe and elsewhere, Scion FR-S in the U.S.) together with Subaru. The deal was that Subaru stops building minivehicles, which are now built by Toyota’s Daihatsu. As a make-good, Subaru builds the hachi-roku/BRZ in its Gunma plant in Ota, Gunma Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo. According to Car and Driver, “only the front fascia, badges, and maybe wheels separate the BRZ from its Toyota—and Scion—sibling.” If the capacities are somehow constrained, then Toyota should know about it.



Toyota always maintained that it will sell as many hachi-roku as possible, with CEO Akio Toyoda personally leading the charge. A quick chat confirms that Toyota has not changed this stance.

Not surprisingly, Toyota’s spokesman Naoto Fuse says that “as for the Toyota 86, we plan to sell between 30,000 and 40,000 units annually overseas, mostly in North America and Europe.”

Why were Subaru spokespeople so busy? On Friday, there will be a line-off party at the Subaru plant. Subaru BRZ, Toyota 86, GT 86, Scion FR-S will be rolling off the line as quickly as they can build them, and as many as importers order will be shipped. Expect the first ones to arrive at U.S. shores in approximately a month from now. After a few weeks of thin supplies, common to any new model launch, you should be able to choose from plenty cars. Don’t buy the shortage story and pay above MSRP.

[tranzformer]

Bertel seems like a good journalist so I am not doubting him. But I thought SOA stated 540 units/month? Not some car magazine.

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by tranzformer

Bertel seems like a good journalist so I am not doubting him. But I thought SOA stated 540 units/month? Not some car magazine.

And that Toyota is getting more cars than Subaru is was known.

I'm sure Subaru will build them if they feel they can sell them but no dealership is even sold out of the limited supply yet that I've seen (ok except for the dealers getting 1 car..).

I suspect the supply will be non-existant for walk in buyers.. until july.

[tranzformer]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

And that Toyota is getting more cars than Subaru is was known.

I'm sure Subaru will build them if they feel they can sell them but no dealership is even sold out of the limited supply yet that I've seen (ok except for the dealers getting 1 car..).

I suspect the supply will be non-existant for walk in buyers.. until july.

Except maybe some places like SoCal?

[daiheadjai]

Originally Posted by oneday

TTAC Publishes Exclusive Picture Of Supply-Constrained Subaru BRZ

Always loved TTAC....
They're generally pretty entertaining to read.
Who could forget the very old, very classic Robert Farago review of the Subaru Tribeca, which caused a stir back in the day:

"Not to belabor the point, but who in their right mind would put a vagina on the nose of an SUV"

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/200...ru-b9-tribeca/

More importantly, they seem to love the BRZ/FRS/GT86 as well.
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/201...hief-engineer/

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by tranzformer

Except maybe some places like SoCal?

I'd guess the number of dealers and quantity of BRZs going there would still allow a surplus pretty quickly. I doubt there will be a lot sitting around, but I don't think finding one after a few months will be that hard.. finding the EXACT one you want might be though.

[Ryephile]

Let's say that Toyota gets 30k units for MY13 for NA and Eu, and guess 20k going to NA, with 15k going to the USA. That's still almost 3x the annual estimation for BRZ in the USA.

IMO the TTAC story corroborates the C&D blog. 50k annual production for all worldwide Zx6 markets sounds appropriate to me.

[tranzformer]

Originally Posted by Ryephile

Let's say that Toyota gets 30k units for MY13 for NA and Eu, and guess 20k going to NA, with 15k going to the USA. That's still almost 3x the annual estimation for BRZ in the USA.

IMO the TTAC story corroborates the C&D blog. 50k annual production for all worldwide Zx6 markets sounds appropriate to me.

So if those numbers hold true, seems like the issue is more of a delay with production meeting up with initial demand. But once that demand is met, seems like it won't be an issue (except for those dealers only getting 1-3 for the first year).

[ahausheer]

My Definition of CANARD: A word that is no longer used except by people who have an inferiority complex and need to dig up nearly extinct words that exist solely in dusty pages of unloved hard copy dictionaries so that they seem somehow smarter, higher, or better than thou.

Criticism, dignified prose, and pretty sentence structure does not impress me. Of course we jumped on this story. We have nothing better to do than dream and imagine at this point, and the ''source'' of the 6,000 number was never hidden. There is nothing wrong with ''jumping'' on the Car and Driver story.

[ichitaka05]

6k first yr? Hm... I wonder due to so many pre-order in other countries?

[feedbag]

Originally Posted by ahausheer

My Definition of CANARD: A word that is no longer used except by people who have an inferiority complex and need to dig up nearly extinct words that exist solely in dusty pages of unloved hard copy dictionaries so that they seem somehow smarter, higher, or better than thou.

Criticism, dignified prose, and pretty sentence structure does not impress me. Of course we jumped on this story. We have nothing better to do than dream and imagine at this point, and the ''source'' of the 6,000 number was never hidden. There is nothing wrong with ''jumping'' on the Car and Driver story.

[Rabble]

I think the most interesting part of this story is the insinuation that the 86 will be hitting dealerships in mid-April.

[eikond]

Originally Posted by ahausheer

My Definition of CANARD: A word that is no longer used except by people who have an inferiority complex and need to dig up nearly extinct words that exist solely in dusty pages of unloved hard copy dictionaries so that they seem somehow smarter, higher, or better than thou.

Criticism, dignified prose, and pretty sentence structure does not impress me. Of course we jumped on this story. We have nothing better to do than dream and imagine at this point, and the ''source'' of the 6,000 number was never hidden. There is nothing wrong with ''jumping'' on the Car and Driver story.

Agreed.. but journalists feel that they have to demonstrate their superior writing skills to prove their worth.. fair enough.

What bothers me is that his tone seems to indicate that everyone on this forum is a bunch of idiots. I'm not sure he actually read the thread and comments. That thread is full of commentary.. A few people took the C&D story as "gospel" and beleive it, others, like myself, called it out as BS. I think the overall tone is that we took it with a grain of salt.

I guess there is a reason why I've never heard of the that website "TTAC".. Because it's not very good.

[OrbitalEllipses]

Originally Posted by eikond

Agreed.. but journalists feel that they have to demonstrate their superior writing skills to prove their worth.. fair enough.

What bothers me is that his tone seems to indicate that everyone on this forum is a bunch of idiots. I'm not sure he actually read the thread and comments. That thread is full of commentary.. A few people took the C&D story as "gospel" and beleive it, others, like myself, called it out as BS. I think the overall tone is that we took it with a grain of salt.

I guess there is a reason why I've never heard of the that website "TTAC".. Because it's not very good.

Agreed again. The Truth About Cars is a Jalopnik alternative, more or less.