Quote:
Originally Posted by JerTM
Not going to lie, I'm pretty disappointed in Toyota right now. First the FR-S/BRZ and now this one? It sounds negative, I just hope it fails miserably. If Toyota has success with things like this who knows how long before all manufacturers take note, then before you know it, there will only be 5-6 different cars just sold under different makes. Pretty much ruins the competition aspect of it and the consumer will end up with the short end of the stick. Don't like the only muscle car offered? It's not reliable? It's slow? Tough for you, it's the only one to buy anyway.
|
This is not a new idea. Fiat sells reskinned Miatas. Chevy recently sold reskinned Nissan vans. VW sold reskinned Caravans. Toyota (inexplicably) sold Cavaliers. Other examples with Toyota include lending the iQ to Aston Martin as the Cygnet & the Matrix to GM as the Vibe. Thats off the top of my head, I'm sure there are countless other examples going back a lot further.
Usually, I think this is done because of a combination of reasons. First, they're expecting low sales. Also, it costs around a billion dollars to develop a new car on an all new platform then get it into production. So unless you can charge a lot of money for the car, it often won't make financial sense to spend so much money for little to no return.
Basically, the options for automakers in these scenarios aren't 'Do it ourselves' vs 'Partner with someone else' its 'Partner' or 'Nothing'.
Although none of this does anything to explain the Toyota Cavalier. They had a better car already in the same segment already.