Quote:
Originally Posted by Diver
GM sold over 35,000 2014 Stingrays. That was about the total for 2010 through 2012. There was no 2013 model. The 2014 sales are not the highest in Corvette history, but are in the ballpark of the best years.
The collapse of sports car sales in 2008 was related to the stock market crash and also the attack on successful people, wealth and 1%'ers by the occupy and Obama camps. Folks wanted to take a lower profile, and green became the in thing.
I believe if a sports car is a beast it will sell. BMW does not need an SLK clone. They need an M car with two seats and a real hard top, probably based on the S55, but with a 2 series footprint.
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Sales data without context doesn't tell us anything. There are lots of opinions posted in here, but very few facts. Unfortunately, it's difficult to debate the topic, because I'm having a hard time finding statistics on "sports car sales". Probably because "sports car" isn't a well defined term.
Read this claim from the OP again:
“The sports-car market is roughly half of what it used to be,” Ian Robertson, BMW’s head of sales, said in an interview at the manufacturer’s headquarters in Munich. “Post-2008, it just collapsed. I’m not so sure it’ll ever fully recover.”
This is such a vague statement, I'm not even sure where to start. The two most glaring issues are:
1) The market specification is ambiguous. What is the "sports-car market"?
2) The statement "half of what it used to be" doesn't specify a time period. 2001? 1995? 2003? We don't know.
Still, he says, "the sports-car market", not BMW sales, not Corvette sales, the "market". No one, that I've seen, has posted a single shred of market data. It's a pointless debate anyway, because BMW probably have their own definition of that market.
The best data I can find comes from a site called Good Car Bad Car:
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2013/11...-2013-ytd.html
http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/2014/11...-2014-ytd.html
Unfortunately, the data isn't comprehensive, and isn't presented in a way that makes it easy to compare time periods (different time periods contain different cars).
It's obvious from the data that the Corvette sales are way, way up (146%), but have a look at the YTD numbers for the "American Muscle" group. When talking about "the market", where you draw your boundaries can make a
huge difference. If we include cars like the Mustang, Camaro, and Challenger in our "sports-car market" definition, the increase in Corvette sales is relatively insignificant. The entire "Other Sporty Cars" group is barely 2/3rds the size of the "American Muscle" group.
Sorry, I know this entire post is pedantic as hell, but the entire discussion here has turned in to an echo chamber. The discussion has little to do with what BMW has said. We're all posting wish lists of cars we'd buy, but that's missing the point entirely. It has nothing to do with anything, because the most focused cars in the market represent the smallest amount of sales.
BMW is hedging. The FWD 1-series is coming, and I suspect it won't be the last FWD BMW. A company the size of BMW has to move to where the market is headed, or they won't survive.
The market, which is, unfortunately, not you and I. Enthusiasts are a tiny piece of the broad market. This communication from BMW is nothing more than excuse making and hedging for a move in to less driver-oriented cars. I hate to be so cynical, but it's hard to read it any other way.