- 1,838
Originally posted by MazKid
I think that cars right now either look great or look horrible. Also I notice that most cars that are made with young drivers in mind look horrible. Just look at em, the Xb(X-Box, interesting...), the Element, Aztec, Sunfire, etc. That's mainly to blame on the car designers being level-headed middle age people who don't really know what kids want to see, or it's the kids themselfs showing a want to drive ugly cars.
Fortunately, most Japanese companies and virtually all European companies don't try to specifically make cars for teens. Instead, they try to just make cars that people in general will like to drive. Mazda, for one(the one company I really really follow, I follow the others too, but I'm not MazKid because of them) shifted from "cars people settle for" to "cars people enjoy driving". Back in the '80s up till the late '90s, Mazda made what many consider "meh" cars, everything except the RX-7 and Miata, essentially. Their other cars were either meant for economy(121/Demio, Carol, 323/Protege, 626, etc.), some utility(B-series, MPV, etc.), and some upscale(929/Millenia, Eunos cars, Xedos cars). Only thier sports cars were real "driver's cars"(ofcourse I consider my 323 to be a driver's car, but that's just me for the most part). Within the past 5 years, Mazda has broadened focus to include most things. The Mazda 6 is both a nice fairly upscale car and something you can push through the curves and zoom around in(up to the fairly lame 120mph limiter...). The RX-8 combines uniqueness, 4 seats(4 useable seats), and impressive performance(it's not meant to be a true sports car). The main place Mazda lacks in is power, but that's not what they are going for really. They just want to make cars that are easy and fun to drive every day.
Unfortunately, due to company partnerships, many cars are becoming twins, some with good results(one that comes to mind is the MX-6 and Probe, they were different in many ways but still the same platform and engines(with the exception of the 1st gen Probe that had a V6), and were reliable as all hell), and some with bad results(Tribute and Escape, atleast at the beginning it was bad, many reliability problems), and you can usually blame the company that provides the chassis and driveline.
I saw Autoline Detroit last night...they had the manager of Pontiac/GMC and then 2 media people...they were talking about the fact that Japanese cars are doing much better than American cars and they were making it sound like it was a war. Also the Pontiac/GMC lady congradulated herself on "lower" PPH numbers...PPH is Problems Per Hundred(at first I didn't know what the hell she was talking about, but she explained it at near the end of the show), and then one of the media people said something like "That's only getting closer to the quality of many Japanese cars" and this lady said "Well we at Pontiac/GMC are trying hard to get the quality up". Hey, atleast they are trying. I don't see how 2 companies that have been around in the US longer than all Japanese companies(in the US) still can't get quality right. Ohh wait, it must be that strive to make money. So they cheap out and get parts from countries such as Mexico, Taiwan, and China. Also they just want to make as many cars as they can in as little time as they can, so they lose quality in that.
And, the hybrid cars...Honda has Civic-based ones(except that FHX or whatever), and Toyota has the Prius and Rav4. They are basically taking thier most economic cars and trying to make them more economical. The price goes way up and out of it's class. What needs to happen is hybrid technology going into all types of cars. Mazda tries this on occasion, but Mazda likes Hydrogen. As early as '92 Mazda had Hydrogen concepts, the HR-X and HR-X2(Hydrogen Rotary). They also had a Hydrogen 1st gen Miata, now have a Hydrogen RX-8(using a hydrogen version of the Renesis), several diesel vehicles, several fuel-cell cars(starting in '92 with a golf-cart looking thing, '97 Demio, '99 Demio, and now a '01 Premacy), and soon a gas/electric Tribute. Fuel-cell, electric, and hydrogen cars will come out, but regular gas cars won't go away. Flying cars can't happen(just think about it for a minute, cars are dangerous on the ground, in mid air if something fails you fall to earth, that's not good). One technology that could happen would be self-guided cars as long as the road surface is still driveable for regular cars.
I'm in a family whose newest car is 11 years old. We'd never buy any hybrid car, and I can't really see us getting a new car at all...since we can fix the older cars cheaply and keep them running forever the only need to get something new would just be for showiness and personal preference. So really, the new car market doesn't mean anything to me.
Too much typing, must...stop...now...
Why should manufacturers built anything just for "teens"
Toyota has cars for its younger buyers, the WILL range, Toyota BB and lots more.
It makes sense to make cars for a younger cliente(20-35) but teens?
You surely must be joking or don't know anything about economics.
Where the hell does the average teen get the money to buy a car?
A mustang COBRA on a 16th BDay?????? His parents are crazy or what?
