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wasn't the Z8 a limited production car
BMW To Discontinue M5, and Z8!
- Thread starter Cobraking
- 44 comments
- 4,136 views
Speculation here, but no - for one, the 1-series will be in all markets where the 3-series Compact is Europe and maybe Australia only. Second the 3-series Compact is just a one-model hatch; it's overpriced and designed questionably, and everybody knows it's just the base 3-series. It also really can't compete for value with any of the competiton. 1-series will capture entry BMW buyers - I can't wait for it, even though I by no means fit into that category.
Yeah - I bet they'll turn a nice profit that way - and they'll be big competition for Mercedes, too!
Hong Kong is Europe.
But that's only assuming they don't have it in the rest of Asia.
For all I know about US and European cars, I don't know a ****ing thing about what they sell in Asia - I couldn't name a single non-Japanese brand being sold now in China for sure. Do BMW or Mercedes send cars there?
Fair comment - I think M-Benz nailed it with their two door hatch version of the C-Class - make it gorgeous and sporty and charge a premium. They're a fairly common sight on Sydney roads, there's a lot more of them than the 3 series hatch.
On the plus side, someone in 3 or 4 years time is going to get a very safe, great handling rwd 3 door...
- 1,494
there's more to being a car manufacturer than just profit. porsche has ONLY sold a fast sportscar for about 50 years until they introduced the cayenne. are they thinking of introducing entry level hatchbacks for amateurs and lamers to drive? i don't think so.
i reckon the people who buy bmw's PURELY because they are good cars to drive are in the minority and a large number of people want a well built car and something thats a little more exclusive than what their neighbour has. if these companies start bringing down their entry level, the exclusivity will be lost and people will stop buying.
doesn't anyone agree that when u have a prestigious marque, diversification could spell a great deal of trouble? cerberalm, help me out here!
- 1,494
you see no connection? ok lets compare porsche and ford.
ford make thousands and thousands of cars all the time. they know they will sell a lot of cars but they don't know how many. they ship them to dealers who are forced to sell them. if for whatever reason demand goes down, say poor image, recession, crap car, etc people will not be keen to buy them. so the dealers will have to reduce prices hence cutting profits dramatically (because manufacturing costs remain the same). ford depends entirely on volume buying, they don't appeal to enthusiasts or people who love cars because that isn't where most of their market is. their cars need to be cheap and reliable. thats all. they are therefore open to fierce competition from cheaper countries i.e. korea. if people start favouring one of their models (i.e. ford loses market share) they can lose $billions. if im not mistaken ford IS currently losing money because of such issues.
it faces problems inherent to multinational business.
porsche on the other hand exhibits qualities of a small family run business. they have a first class image, they don't have any direct competitors. yes ferrari is also prestigious but their cars are totally different. much less subtle and more expensive, not to mention MR. BMW could be a competitor but it isn't as exclusive. the only car that comes close to any of the porsche range is the M5, and that's blown away by the 996 twin turbo. if someone comes to porsche wanting a car, chances are they are fairly certain they want a porsche. so they choose their model, pay and THEN porsche build it. they sell 100% of the cars they build at 100% of their value. meaning their profits are stable, an important trait in business.
which brings me onto ur other point,
if an exclusive, prestigious company makes the move from small range to large range, lets see what happens.
first they need to invest in new machines to build the new models along side the existing ones. they need more storage space to keep them, and more trucks and ships to distribute them around the world. all these means heavy financial investment. they couldn't possibly price the models highly and wait 10 or 20 years for the money to come back cause they'd go bankrupt. so they drop the prices of the new models encouraging more people to buy, if more people can afford them, they build more, and start moving into the league of a multinational looking for volume rather than exclusivity.
yeah sure its possible that bmw could make the ideal car to replace any merc or porsche or van etc. but that doesn't happen in the real world. they need to be VERY careful that they don't distance their current customer base with say new styling (oops too late for that) or dropping their prices so much, fools start to buy them and the image hits rock bottom.
note i didn't say it would spell financial ruin, only trouble. trouble in that they will have to play their cards very carefully and are at risk of being hit back real hard if something goes wrong.
So - what's your point?
Yeah - whoa - Porsche and Ford are different, and rely on different buyers and different segments. Incredible - just shoot me now.
Really - I see no connection, just as I saw no connection above.
Or - get this idea - if a company wanted to expand, couldn't they just, hypothetically, produce a high-profit vehicle not typical of their line and sell it at a huge markup? This way, on every unit sold, they'd make enough for all the things you mention above (plus management and workers) and the buyer of this hypothetical vehicle would be driving a good product with the brand's premium name. Everybody's a winner!
Now - let's call that product Cayenne, and that brand Porsche. Caught on yet?
even Porsche makes 'affordable' cars for its target market.
- 1,494
when i first saw i, i thought the cayenne was a very bad idea. but porsche saw that all the other suvs were rubbish and they knew they could make a better one. but did they change the styling of their 911 at the same time? did they decide to add two more models too? i think not.
i'll shut up now but i'll just finish up by saying that i'll be very surprised if in 10-15 years time, bmw still has a wider range of cars than it did in the late 80's and is not in financial trouble.
i'll shut up now but i'll just finish up by saying that i'll be very surprised if in 10-15 years time, bmw still has a wider range of cars than it did in the late 80's and is not in financial trouble.
- 1,494
fourth are you counting?
i was just referring to the fact that bmw have drastically changed the styling on their cars. as well as adding the 1 series and 6 series to their range.
