“it is said that production will be stopped every year, and new models will be produced year after year.
” Unexpectedly, people who buy BRZ can also become “big leeks”.
At the end of 2021, the new generation of BRZ, code-named ZD8, returned to the Chinese market, making many fans applaud (including me).
Unexpectedly, just over a year later, Subaru announced in early 2023 that production of the new BRZ is expected to stop in March of that year, and then continue to sell until the end of June 2023 and leave the Chinese market temporarily.
As we all know, due to the restrictions of emission regulations, it is only the new generation of BRZ in the national six A standard that can no longer be sold in the Chinese market.
Since its launch in 2012, BRZ has been very popular among domestic car riders, so it is a pity for many people to leave in a hurry.
But for car owners who have already placed orders, they will secretly be happy to think that they have bought wealth management products (including me, of course).
Does the suspension of production mean that the cash model will appreciate in value? after all, the BRZ in the ZC6 era was a proper “value preservation artifact”.
Unexpectedly, the last batch of cars before delisting was actually “difficult” to clear the inventory, not to mention the “dive” in price.
Obviously, the fan base of this niche performance car has been greatly reduced.
Especially in the environment of price war, from the point of view of ordinary consumers, they can be said to have no “performance-to-price ratio”.
In the past, they were able to play a sex card to attract some young consumers, but in front of all kinds of electric cars with very different personalities, these fuel-performance cars can’t compete with personality or performance.
But I don’t know if Subaru figured it out or didn’t figure it out, BRZ came back.
This time, with the new national 6B standard, with the title of STI Sport, and the whole department is also equipped with EyeSight active security system.
Even more let the old car owners collapse, the configuration is fully upgraded, the price is lower than before, BRZ unexpectedly in this way “involved” in the price war.
High performance, low sales volume, in terms of price, performance cars are much more expensive than ordinary family cars, often double or even double the price difference compared with the same class.
For example, the top version of C260L costs 378800 yuan, while the price of AMG C 63 S E Performance F1 Special Edition, a C-class high-performance version, is 1.
1918 million yuan, which is three times that of the top version of C260L, which can be selected from the S-level list.
Even the price of the AMG C 43 4MATIC is enough to buy a Mercedes-Benz E-Class.
This comparison also applies to the same type of products of BMW and Audi.
So, apart from those avid performance fans, how many consumers are willing to pay an S-class for a C-Class or a 7-Series for a 3-Series? Especially for Chinese consumers, under the influence of the atmosphere of “buying big but not small, cars are face-saving”, when you say you spent millions on a C-class, you will certainly be scoffed by some unknown people.
In fact, the people who really understand it are only the minority.
For these reasons sales of these models must be very low.
In the first half of this year, Mercedes-Benz’s C-Class AMG sold 377 vehicles, while Audi’s RS4 and RS5 sold 192 and 251 respectively.
In this category, the best performers are the BMW M3 and M4, with sales of 493 and 619 respectively in half a year.
Of course, for these fans who like performance cars, they also have their own values and criteria.
Therefore, if you happen to buy an M3 and someone asks why you don’t buy the 7-Series, you keep saying that the 7-Series is more comfortable and has more face to drive out, then if you look him in the eye, you lose.
In fact, car companies launch high-performance models not to bring much sales growth, but to show brand strength and establish a brand image.
The key gene of performance cars is performance.
Their engine, gearbox and suspension adjustment are very different from ordinary family cars, and many models use some racing technology.
Win the championship on Sunday and sell well on Monday.
How to make ordinary consumers feel the leading technology carried by these “champion cars”, and use the excellent results of the race as a selling point to attract a large number of fans, and use the racing car as a template to build a performance car that complies with road safety regulations? is the best way.
In many touring car tournaments, racing cars are based on civilian cars for the platform, and in order to achieve good results, the engine, gearbox and suspension need to be upgraded.
On the one hand, car companies continue to achieve technological breakthroughs in the track.
on the other hand, these new technologies can be partially used in performance cars to show their strength.
Therefore, the performance car can be perfectly connected with the racing car, forming a virtuous circle in technology.
For example, Leike 03 TCR, which has been used in TCR racing for many years, is based on the 03 mass production model, but it can be described as a gap except that its platform and appearance are similar to those of the ordinary 03.
With the accumulation of experience in racing, based on the research and development and adjustment of the powertrain of 03 TCR, Lectra launched 03 + TCR Cyan, an extreme high-performance car.
What’s more, some performance cars also adopt the related technology of F1.
For example, the new Mercedes-AMG C 63 S E PERFORMANCE uses the hybrid technology of Mercedes-Benz F1 cars, and the V10 engine of the former E60 M5 is also prepared by BMW for F1 cars.
The performance car standing image is not applicable here.
Based on these factors, the performance car seems to have come with a glorious mission.
Especially for these performance cars with the exception of luxury brands such as BBA, such as Volkswagen, Ford, Toyota, Honda and other joint venture brands, they have always been “applauded and popular” in overseas markets.
Therefore, Chinese consumers should see the different side of the brand and feel the unique charm of its technological progress.
However, the development of the market is not sound, so that many brands of performance cars are “lame” here-almost all end up selling cars at a loss in order to digest inventory.
Of course, some of them only blame themselves.
For example, the fourth generation Miata.
In 2018, Mazda officially introduced the MX-5 RF to the Chinese market, which enjoys a high reputation in the world and is a “happy trot” in the minds of many people.
But oddly enough, Mazda didn’t bring the manual version that fans prefer, and the hard-top convertible is not as direct-poking as the soft top.
Hunger marketing is not a good strategy, and Mazda did not think clearly about the positioning of the car, so it did not sell well.
But on the other side, Volkswagen G.
However, the olf R and the Ford Focus RS are really “delayed” by the market.
Ford, in particular, introduced three performance steel guns, Fiesta ST and Focus ST/RS, one after another, which attracted countless fans to applaud, but the sales performance fell far short of the brand’s expectations.
Consumers at that time simply did not understand how a focus could sell for 400000 just because it was an imported car.
If BBA’s performance car can tell a story with brand endorsement, when it comes to Ford, many people don’t want to know about its rally journey or the brand’s other racing experience.
Since then, Ford has not introduced any ST or RS models.
At the beginning of this year, a group of aerial photos of the parking lot went viral on the Internet.
Why is it hotly debated, because most people have heard of the same model in the picture, which is the familiar “red-headed Honda”– Civic Type R.
This caused a lot of discussion.
Unexpectedly, the Civic Type R, which has the fastest front-drive performance in the world, is unexpectedly unsalable.
Back in the beginning, this car also needed a price increase in order to lift the car.
How much does it cost? It is reported that the first batch of car owners added 80,000 yuan before they mentioned the new car.
When I asked more than a month after the listing, the price increase was about 40,000 yuan.
If I wanted to buy a car at the official guided price, it was almost impossible at that time.
But the reality is that there is only a small wave of buyers in the performance car market.
After “harvesting” the first wave of fanatical fans, the attention simply can not last long, if you do not grasp the rhythm, it is not surprising that the market performance “slamming the street”.
The reality is that Civic Type R does not bring too much positive value to Civic, but increases the inventory pressure of the brand.
The life of performance car is not easy.
With the continuous acceleration of the transformation of new energy, electrification has achieved “power equality”.
In the past, the accelerated performance of two or three million overruns can now be achieved by an electric car of 20,000 to 300,000 yuan.
Those performance cars with performance as the core selling point have increasingly lost their former belief in the public opinion environment of “acceleration is justice”.
A more complicated problem is that the price war is becoming more and more fierce and the prices of both oil cars and trams continue to fall.
However, due to the high cost of technology and the lack of a large sales group, it is obviously impossible to make too many concessions in terms of price, which makes the position of performance cars in the Chinese market more embarrassing.
Minority and expensive, is the general impression of performance cars, so it can be seen that the return of BRZ is also somewhat unexpected.
When the market pattern changes, these brands that can still bring performance cars to Chinese consumers are really touching.
Especially those brands whose premium power is not as good as that of BBA, besides Subaru mentioned, there are also brands like Ford and Hyundai.
Of course, there are also some of our domestic performance cars worthy of praise, such as Shadow Leopard R, this domestic small steel gun with a very cost-effective price, has become the first performance car for countless young consumers.
What is worth mentioning most is Hyundai.
The Chinese version of the IONIQ 5 N sold in the Chinese market is the lowest in the world, and Chinese fans may not have thought that one day they would be treated like this.
Even so, whether it is a tram or an oil car, when a car is positioned as a performance car, don’t expect it to bring much increase in sales, which is really a niche group.
Back to the essence, as fans of performance cars, we respect those brands that still choose to cultivate the Chinese performance car market under the electric wave.
After all, the performance car culture in the Chinese market is relatively scarce compared with other regions, and the market group is also relatively small.
But then again, if you really want to make a difference here, you must show your sincerity.
First of all, we should put down our airs, and secondly, we should not keep people in suspense, let alone duplicity.
For example, Toyota GR YARIS, which has kept everyone waiting year after year, am I right? , return to the first electric network home page >.
