Age 40+

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

If these are new registrations ...

As @Tcoat pointed out, it was older data. Pretty sure it was new car registrations prior to there being many used on the market. Ultimately, used car registration doesn't really matter much in terms of market share. Market share only really matters at new purchase as that determines what is built and who it's aimed at in design.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

If these are new registrations then I would expect the average age to be high, inline with the average for new cars, which is in the fifties, if I remember correctly. I would expect it to average a little younger for a cheaper and youthful car, of course, but not a whole lot.

If these are total registrations of the first gen in the first few years then I would expect average registrations to slowly get younger and younger over the years, as the prices on the used market drop.

That is new sales data up to 2015.
Doubt there is much hope on finding used data but yes the average age would drop dramatically.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

As @Tcoat pointed old, it was older data. Pretty sure it was new car registrations prior to there being many used on the market. Ultimately, used car registration doesn't really matter much in terms of market share. Market share only really matters at new purchase as that determines what is built and who it's aimed at in design.

Tracking used car demographics would be worse than useless for the auto companies to decide what to make. The data would be so skewed that the picture could be the total opposite of reality.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Tracking used car demographics would be worse than useless for the auto companies to decide what to make. The data would be so skewed that the picture could be the total opposite of reality.

Besides, what are they going to do?

Originally Posted by Some Marketing Genius

"Market data shows that the 18 to 23 demographic purchase more 86 models once the prices drops to $14,000. To attract that market we will now drop MSRP to $14,999 to increase market share"

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Dadhawk

Besides, what are they going to do?

Not much. They aren't going to lower the price or start building super cheap cars. The only reason they would care about the trends of used car buyers is because used car buyers affect new car buyers, as it pertains to offloading old cars, so people can buy new cars, and also as it pertains to resale value to be able to afford a new car. If used car buyers happen to be exceptionally young proportional to new car buyers and are cash strapped or have trouble with financing at higher interest rates then used car values may drop more precipitously to find buyers. Knowing the youth will be picking up used cars, does it make sense to market the car across demographics? Would they offer more buy backs with CPO offers? I have no idea what they could do or if anything would make a difference, but it is interesting.

I just wanted to know what were the true demographics relative to the topic of this thread. If the average buyer is 45, but only retains the car for two years and sells it to the average second owner who is 25, and say 90% of owners are under 30 (arbitrarily speaking), then the average demographic might be fairly young. People can buy whatever they want, but if the op was worried about how they might appear being older and driving a car driven by a younger demographic then they would want the best information. As such is the case, new car sales demographics may not be the best information.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

Not much. They aren't going to lower the price or start building super cheap cars. The only reason they would care about the trends of used car buyers is because used car buyers affect new car buyers, as it pertains to offloading old cars, so people can buy new cars, and also as it pertains to resale value to be able to afford a new car. If used car buyers happen to be exceptionally young proportional to new car buyers and are cash strapped or have trouble with financing at higher interest rates then used car values may drop more precipitously to find buyers. Knowing the youth will be picking up used cars, does it make sense to market the car across demographics? Would they offer more buy backs with CPO offers? I have no idea what they could do or if anything would make a difference, but it is interesting.

I just wanted to know what were the true demographics relative to the topic of this thread. If the average buyer is 45, but only retains the car for two years and sells it to the average second owner who is 25, and say 90% of owners are under 30 (arbitrarily speaking), then the average demographic might be fairly young. People can buy whatever they want, but if the op was worried about how they might appear being older and driving a car driven by a younger demographic then they would want the best information. As such is the case, new car sales demographics may not be the best information.

I think you will find that the older buyers keep the cars much longer than the younger ones. They aren't usually as quick to jump into the next great thing. This forum supports that in that the vast bulk of the long term regular members are 40+.
The ones jumping in for a couple of years are more likely to be the younger ones and when you start changing hands in the same age group then it won't impact the overall demographic a whole lot.
If I judged who drives these from my observations on the road it would be that the majority are middle aged women since that is an easy 80% of the drivers I see.

You are way overthinking the impact that used cars sales has on the auto company decisions. They don't really care what values on resales or offloading old cars since their plans are made 3 or 4 years in advance and any used trends become irrelevant.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

I think you will find that the older buyers keep the cars much longer than the younger ones. They aren't usually as quick to jump into the next great thing. This forum supports that in that the vast bulk of the long term regular members are 40+.
The ones jumping in for a couple of years are more likely to be the younger ones and when you start changing hands in the same age group then it won't impact the overall demographic a whole lot.
If I judged who drives these from my observations on the road it would be that the majority are middle aged women since that is an easy 80% of the drivers I see.

You are way overthinking the impact that used cars sales has on the auto company decisions. They don't really care what values on resales or offloading old cars since their plans are made 3 or 4 years in advance and any used trends become irrelevant.

So here was my thought process: more new cars are bought by older people (53 average), the majority of people sell their car when/before their lease and/or warranty expires, leases and warranties typically last 3-5 years, the average age of vehicles on the road is 12+ years and 25% are 15+ years old, second-hand owners make up the majority of drivers on the road, therefore the used car demographics will be more important for the OP to consider than new car demographics, and used cars tend to skew younger. There is probably a certain percentage of new cars that are purchased by older buyers as gifts for their teens, especially for a car like this. Just saying. If I were to judge based on what I see then I would say the majority of the owners are sub 30 and male.

I also don't know if this forum is the best means for determining demographics. Car forums were like the original social media platform for car clubs and gear heads, but the youth has moved on to FB, IG and other social media platforms, so your numbers might be a little skewed.

I'm thinking about it. I don't know that I am "way overthinking" about it. All I was really saying was that used car sales are not irrelevant to new car sales, despite what was said here and has been repeated on this forum in other threads. For instance, used car trends will influence pricing and production for new cars, and it will influence used car dealer buybacks/flips for newer models. Several manufactures have ads boasting about how their cars maintain their resale value like Subaru, so I know they are following the used car market. They probably follow auto trends in the aftermarket, in customizing or racing or all car markets, taking cues for future new cars. For instance, I feel like the reemergence of the two-toned, paint trend came from people doing carbon fiber hoods and trunks leading to dark hood/roof wraps leading to two toned paint jobs being popular with new cars a few years back, if that is where that all stemmed from--I'm not sure; the Mini could have helped too.

[Tcoat]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

So here was my thought process: more new cars are bought by older people (53 average), the majority of people sell their car when/before their lease and/or warranty expires, leases and warranties typically last 3-5 years, the average age of vehicles on the road is 12+ years and 25% are 15+ years old, second-hand owners make up the majority of drivers on the road, therefore the used car demographics will be more important for the OP to consider than new car demographics, and used cars tend to skew younger. There is probably a certain percentage of new cars that are purchased by older buyers as gifts for their teens, especially for a car like this. Just saying. If I were to judge based on what I see then I would say the majority of the owners are sub 30 and male.

I also don't know if this forum is the best means for determining demographics. Car forums were like the original social media platform for car clubs and gear heads, but the youth has moved on to FB, IG and other social media platforms, so your numbers might be a little skewed.

I'm thinking about it. I don't know that I am "way overthinking" about it. All I was really saying was that used car sales are not irrelevant to new car sales, despite what was said here and has been repeated on this forum in other threads. For instance, used car trends will influence pricing and production for new cars, and it will influence used car dealer buybacks/flips for newer models. Several manufactures have ads boasting about how their cars maintain their resale value like Subaru, so I know they are following the used car market. They probably follow auto trends in the aftermarket, in customizing or racing or all car markets, taking cues for future new cars. For instance, I feel like the reemergence of the two-toned, paint trend came from people doing carbon fiber hoods and trunks leading to dark hood/roof wraps leading to two toned paint jobs being popular with new cars a few years back, if that is where that all stemmed from--I'm not sure; the Mini could have helped too.

Maybe in your exposure people get a new car every three years but in the real world many keep them much much longer.

They boast about resale to sell you a NEW car. You are mistaking dealer sales tactics for manufacturer production planning.

I highly doubt they took two tone from a handful of people doing carbon wraps. Two tone cars have been around a long long time.

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

So here was my thought process: more new cars are bought by older people (53 average),,,

And it continues to get older, not younger....

At least according to this article the primary buying group is 25 to 54, but I'm not sure there isn't a different demographic (say 35 to 60) that would be higher.

[Irace86.2.0]

Originally Posted by Tcoat

Maybe in your exposure people get a new car every three years but in the real world many keep them much much longer.

They boast about resale to sell you a NEW car. You are mistaking dealer sales tactics for manufacturer production planning.

I highly doubt they took two tone from a handful of people doing carbon wraps. Two tone cars have been around a long long time.

One quarter to one third of vehicles are leased. This isn't a small percentage.

I found this chart, which gives credence to your point that vehicle ownership is longer with new car owners than used car owners, and there is a trend to keep cars longer, and this is old, so we might expect even longer ownership, yet we also see from the numbers that in 2006 the average new car owner kept their car for 52 months or 4.3 years (meaning half kept the car for less time), and in 2016 it was 79 months and 6.6 years (same, although we don't know the standard deviation from the average, so it could be two years or two months for the first deviation). I'm sure some of the trend to keep cars longer has to do with the rise of longer warranties and extended warranties and better reliability. Considering the average car on the road is 12+ years old now, and the average car will last past 200k miles easy, it is reasonable to conclude that the car will have a longer used car ownership than new car ownership based on the chart, even if that means having multiple used car owners before it finally hits the recycler. Again, this is just further supporting the idea that more 86 owners could be of the younger, used car demographic than the older, new car demographic.

Again, my examples are just examples of how they are paying attention to the used car market. What they do with that information is harder to demonstrate. I mean, I could probably say that the influence of duckbill spoilers in the aftermarket probably influenced the Supra and GR86 having duckbill spoilers, but I have no way to prove that. Several aftermarket trends seemed to make it to the new models, but that could be just coincidence. Used car trends could influence new car production; for instance, only 6% of cars sold are new, so that is a smaller market to draw conclusion from trends, but if the used car market sees a flood of buyers wanting cars that are electric or cars with better gas mileage then that could influence production of EVs or cars with better gas mileage. Ultimately, I think I am beating a dead horse trying to suggest the obvious that manufactures are interested in many different factors, and it is probably safe to conclude that they aren't ignoring trends in influential markets entirely. I'm not giving weight to how influential these markets are to their decisions, only that they are considered.

Regardless, this is a topic I'm losing interest in arguing because it is merging too far off topic from my point, which is that the chart you posted only reflects new car sales, and it isn't reflective of the true demographic of the drivers of these cars, which is probably much younger when we consider the fact that the car is now nine years old and much cheaper for younger owners to get into the car.

I don't know if this is new car owners or all car owners (I believe new), but BRZ is 36 for a median age and the 86 is like 50. The new BRZ is 34 for a target age, so I can only imagine it is even younger for the used market, which is my only point, which none of this should be surprising anyone.

With a median buyer age of 36, the BRZ has the third-youngest customer in the market. (First place is held by the Subaru WRX (32) and second by the WRX STI (34).)

https://www.motortrend.com/features/...17-subaru-brz/

He said BRZ's target customers are "young and spirited," with a median age of 34.

https://www.torquenews.com/1084/next...est-month-ever

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by Bobrad20

I'm 89, will be 90 in November and tracking since 1952. That was in a Cad-Allard and a MG TD.

WOW! You are frigging OLD -

I reckon you got a late start tracking - I was tracking in 1952, at 9 years old -

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by toyotoys

Turned 47 in April, awaiting allocation on a manual Premium Neptune. You're only as old as you feel.

NO! - I'm not that damn old -

[humfrz]

Originally Posted by Capt Spaulding

68 with a broken femur to show for it. Now training to get my 6’6” carcass back into (and harder still out of) a car with the seat height of a go kart.

Your hip is supposed to break first -

This may be what you and ol @Sapphireho needs -

[Dadhawk]

Originally Posted by Irace86.2.0

I don't know if this is new car owners or all car owners (I believe new), but BRZ is 36 for a median age and the 86 is like 50. The new BRZ is 34 for a target age, so I can only imagine it is even younger for the used market, which is my only point, which none of this should be surprising anyone.

So, according to the last chart in your post the MEDIAN age (the point where there are as many buyers above as below the line) of the Z4 is almost 70 years old? What did they only sell two during the period?