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Sedans High End Luxury Cars
24648 messages, Last post on Feb 17, 2009 at 11:03 AM
You are in the Sedans Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
Let's try to define this forum as being limited to luxury performance vehicles where the mainstream version in a typical configuration has an MSRP of at least $60k.
A luxury vehicle with a base price of $59k qualifies because it would typically be bought with some additional equipment, bringing the MSRP over $60k.
Vehicles like the E, 5, A6, M, or GS, even if available in certain versions over $60k, don't qualify because they are cars from companies that have higher end cars in their lineups.
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Hi All, I've been reading an older issue of Jaguar World in which it talks about the furor of Jaguar owners after the release of downmarket cars such as the X-Type and X-Type Wagon..Buyer loyalty has fallen and Jaguar isn't expected to make a profit until 2009.. I've always maintained that Ford is making a huge mistake by taking Jaguar downmarket. It's better to focus on the high end. Why risk infuriating a potential buyer of a 80K car for a X Type sale? When I went to have a look at the new XJ I was bothered by the strong resemblance the X-Type had to it..Better yet, the XJ simply lacked the "look" of a Jaguar..It seemed like something that had come out of a Ford design committee.. So the question begs..Is going downmarket the answer to the Euro luxury car woes? What I've said above applies to Mercedes as well...With all the downmarket models what was the point of buying Chrysler? It doesn't make any business sense to me.. Your comments Please, SV
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Replying to: kyfdx (Feb 18, 2005 11:22 am) Audi A8 a tiny bit behind the top 3.
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Replying to: michael_mattox (Feb 18, 2005 5:15 pm) even though i just purchased an Audi A8...Audi's brand awareness in the USA is not equal to the other German automakers. hopefully this version of the A8 will bridge the gap that now exists. as for going down market with cheaper models.... i believe it to be a necessity of the auto manufacturing business in todays market. every automaker needs to take advantage of cost savings to be competitive. i believe that all of the brands we see today will eventually be cut by a third within 20 years. Honda and Bmw ...i believe are the only independents left. most brands have merged or been purchased by their competitors. debates like the one that has been raging this past week will even be harder in the future. brand loyalty will be harder to come by.
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Replying to: carnaught (Feb 18, 2005 2:24 pm) |
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Replying to: denaliinpa (Feb 18, 2005 5:53 pm) Oh my !!! We finally get an agreement !!!!! Who said we can't get along ??? 
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http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/16/pf/autos/lexus.reut/index.htm Is it just me, or is this little story perhaps getting a little bit more coverage because it involves Lexus? |
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Replying to: michael_mattox (Feb 18, 2005 10:51 am) You recapped what I was saying very succinctly. Thank you for stepping in here. I was getting a bit frustrated with Merc's insistence on accusing me of making a statement that I never made. |
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Replying to: kyfdx (Feb 18, 2005 10:59 am) I have more than a passing knowledge of industrial metals. In case you did not know anything beyond your soft drink can (hey, your own choice of reference, it's only fair, right?  I supplied a link in one of my earlier posts: http://ussautomotive.com/auto/steelvsal/mechproperties.htm It's quite an informative site. Obviously, the industrial insiders find it quite purposeful discussing the intrinsic metallurgical properties without referencing specific crash A/B tests; kinda makes sense, you don't need to build a full size cardboard A8 to prove cardboard is a bad choice. Now what's the relevence to Audi, you ask, well, one of the Audi fans brought up that Aluminum (space frame) was what differentiiats Audi from VW. I was merely pointing out that the actual benefit from Aluminum construction in a vehicle as heavy as A8 is very questionable. Apparently the industrial insiders at the site referenced above concur; if you follow the link for a few pages you will actually see an in-depth analysis of the 2002 Audi A8 Space Frame Aluminum Intensive structure and its disadvantages. I should also point out that aluminum construction only accounts for something like 3% of all Audis sold in 2004! That's hardly a marquee identity. Just because you are not knowledgeable on a specific subject, don't assume others are equally ignorant.
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Replying to: denaliinpa (Feb 18, 2005 3:17 pm) No rebadged Chrysler necessary; Mercedes vehicles themselves are shoddy enough. I'd take a Toyota over any Mercedes, even at the same price point, much less Lexus. Look through your own list again. LS exceeds S by more than 50% in fleet representation. MB's volume leader is a sub-$30k compact (that's before the even more cheaply put together A/B class gets here; A/B class is the MB volume leader in practically every market that it has entered, at or below $20k base price), whereas Lexus' volume leader is a mid-sized vehicle close to $40k in base price. All the halo models only serve to spread the engineering resources extra thin. At about 35-40k units a year, Chevy sells more Corvettes than all the high performance models MB's combined, yet Chevy is not a high performance marquee due to its roster of low-end products. MB's claim to luxury marquee is likewise questionable when it has moved down market as fast as it has in the last decade.
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Replying to: sv7887 (Feb 18, 2005 3:58 pm) Even at $400k per vehicle, it takes 10k vehicles to break even (assuming the car manufacturing itself cost negligible amount of money . Either that or trim the engineering budget and let cars leave the factory with myriads of bugs due to a shoe-string engineering budget. One way to increase unit sales for a niche vehicle is prolonging the product cycle, but then the mfr ends up having an obsolete product line. MB seems to be trying some marketting trick with the Chrysler purchase: using the latter as some sort of life cycle extension program for obsolete MB platforms, so more unit sales can be generated. Exterior design is cheap, getting everything working together well inside takes real engineering budget, so it is a cheap trick to extend a platform's shelf life; every brand does that sort of thing with mid-cycle refreshes, but MB is trying to double the shelf life by giving Chrysler hand-me-downs. I wonder how quickly people are going to realize those hand-me-down "MB technology" on re-skinned Chryslers are little more than twice warmed left-overs. I will give it perhaps one year, before 300C piling up in the supply channel to multi-month proportions just like Crossfire has. |
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