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Re: Niche is good if profitable Posted by Snowmobile [Email]  (#686)  [Profile/Gallery]
(more from Snowmobile) on Mon, 8 Dec 2014 08:06:08
In Reply to: Re: Niche is good if profitable, A1-turbo, Sat, 6 Dec 2014 12:31:42 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
Well that is the key - niche is good if profitable.
Why though is BMW now making these GT cars, more than ever since SAAB's downfall? Merc had a hatch back at the end of the og9-3 era... obviously there is a market for that body shape. It is not as big a market as for a sedan, CUV, or even a wagon, but it is for sure a credible market and also not such a competitive market as for sedans or CUVs.
To be profitable selling sedans, SAAB would have had to offer something better than a value proposition. They didn't beat the Germans at broad market appeal, so they had to undercut them in price, but with similar production costs which kills profitability. When you are a small manufacturer, chasing low prices is a doomsday death spiral. The only option is to go up the food chain. If SAAB made a $70k 9-3 that looked amazing (but different), drove amazing, as a hybrid eXWD hatch, real leather like in the c900's etc... how many here would buy that? Not too many due to cost (certainly not hyundai folks), numbers would be lower, but there are people who would. There are lots of well paid people looking for something unique and solid. Think about how much a well equipped c900 cost in the 1980's relative to your disposable income vs today.
There is a certain club of SAAB fans who think SAAB should have been Toyota - selling huge numbers of cars at the same or lower prices than the discounted prices we were seeing towards "the end" (with GM)... that was completely unsustainable without dramatically cheaper production costs. That is the Hyundai game, and that is why many of those folks have switched over to Korean daily drivers...
So I really do think it was the sedan that killed SAAB - or more so, the *dependance* on sedans pushed by GM. SAAB actually had sedans going fairly far back in history (pre-GM), but they were more unique - a derivative of the hatch rather than vice versa (like BMW/Audi do). Heck, they even had a sedan coupe (notchback). I would have nothing against them releasing hatch/sedan/vert... but 9-3ss release was sedan/vert/(much delayed wagony thing). 9-5 was sedan/wagon. A colleague who replaced an aging 9000 with a 9-5 sedan lamented that it was not available as a hatch... didn't want a wagon...
, Mon, 1 Dec 2014 12:12:27
, Tue, 2 Dec 2014 11:54:47, Thu, 4 Dec 2014 12:25:11, Mon, 8 Dec 2014 08:06:08 <-- Viewing This Message, Tue, 9 Dec 2014 06:59:51, Fri, 5 Dec 2014 19:22:45
, Wed, 3 Dec 2014 14:28:59, Thu, 4 Dec 2014 17:19:28, Wed, 3 Dec 2014 14:48:58, Wed, 3 Dec 2014 19:01:35, Wed, 3 Dec 2014 17:35:12, Tue, 2 Dec 2014 18:34:45, Tue, 2 Dec 2014 19:36:18, Tue, 2 Dec 2014 12:39:12, Tue, 2 Dec 2014 18:06:16
, Tue, 2 Dec 2014 12:19:00, Mon, 1 Dec 2014 21:37:57, Mon, 1 Dec 2014 18:18:50, Mon, 1 Dec 2014 15:18:21, Tue, 2 Dec 2014 00:25:08, Tue, 2 Dec 2014 18:04:43
, Tue, 2 Dec 2014 12:18:02
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