djct_watt

Unless it (the iQ) costs significantly less, I couldn't imagine why anyone would get one over a Yaris. . .

Tomas

Yeah, the close coupled short wheelbase on the iQ (the name a take off on "Smart") with rather limited travel is going to give a very choppy ride with lots of pitch motions in its ride.

In the city, at low speeds, that won't be much of a problem, but on the highway it could be brutal - but then it is not designed as a highway car.

The main seating is placed pretty close to geometric center, so the effects of the pitch and choppyness in the front seat passengers should be a low as possible, but there is just no getting around that it will have an "interesting" ride.

I'm not sure about the style folks will choose, but so far what I hear folks talking about is again huge wheels and paper thin tires. (That may change when they feel how it rides...)

Lots of folks liked the 5axis bodykit that was dragged around the country and shown in person to "a select few."

We'll just have to wait and see...

JDMJim

yea, here in America, you HAVE to use the highways since our road system is based on it and most sideroads use the speed limit of japanese highways. it's certainly a niche car, but maybe too much of a niche

808-213-503

djct_watt

Hey, 808, where did you get that chart? Did you make? Big ups to you if you actually did the work and posted it up, that's awesome. . . but yeah. . . there are those of us not so heavily vested into defending the car, and we can read the numbers. . . there really is no point arguing about it since it will go on forever, no matter what data and numbers you provide.

What is REALLY interesting is that at their respective sales peaks, the xD did not sell as well as the xA. I really think the xA undersold due to lack of recognition. . . it was marketed very hard (unlike the Fit or Yaris), it wasn't well recognized, and to this day, most people have NO IDEA what kind of car it is. You can't exactly sell a car if NOBODY knows about it. Honestly, when I owned an xA, it got more attention than any other car I've had. . . my brother had a 911 GT3 I would borrow frequently and I got LESS looks and questions in the Porsche than the xA. The xB didn't exactly need the marketing. . . it was sooooo out there it was INSTANTLY recognizeable. And being that an equivalently equipped Yaris was more expensive than the xA (and its basically the same car), the Yaris sold like hotcakes, relative to the xA. Same car, better pricing, and worse sales leads me to think it was a strategy/marketing problem more than the car itself.

Sciond

yes it has potential but the Fiat 500 is gonna be tough competition when it gets here

Tomas

Nice chart! Shows cyclic nature of sales and overall trends.

I added two items that help explain some of the information...

drviolin

The 500 has been a hit in Europe, probably due to its cute look and the nostalgia it evokes, but I think Fiat engineering, build quality and reliability are nowhere near Toyota's - and never will be.

Tomas

Actually, Fiat engineering is not all that bad, but they tend to be lacking in the "extras" we have become accustomed to, and always tend to be a "World Car" no matter where they are sold rather than tweaked for each market. (And their electrics tend to be even worse than the British... )

(I've owned British, and all of 'em had electrics by Lucas. There was a reason the common saying was "Lucas, Lord of Darkness.")

In the US, the Italian and French cars have never really done all that well - they just seem "odd." German, Japanese, and now Korean have been better accepted. Heck, even the Swedes did better here. :o)

There are some excellent European brands out there, and some very interesting cars, but unless they can suddenly show up with a full blown dealer network and an endless supply of parts and mechanics, they can't expect to be a huge splash in the US.

I've had cars that if you left the town where you bought it you couldn't get it worked on and there were no parts. Let's face it, the last place you want to be stuck waiting 2 weeks for a part and hoping that the mechanic has the tools and knowledge to fix something is in the middle of nowhere on your vacation... (Last of my MGs that I sold actually had some John Deer parts in it from when I got it fixed while passing through Lamar, CO.)

drviolin

Their engineering may not be bad, and you would know better as an engineer, but I think FIAT has never really tried to be up to date. That, in my opinion, is their No. 1 problem. I think they focus primarily on the average Italian buyer. This means no automatic transmission even as an option! So the "extras" you are referring to are definitely lacking, as one would expect. However, FIAT's other brands, Alfa Romeo and Lancia, are a lot more interesting, and I am sure they would do well in the US if equipped and positioned properly, but can they pull off a successful re-entry onto the US market? Meanwhile, the Asians are going to continue to be in the lead simply because they do their homework so much better. Hyundai and Kia had practically not even been born yet when FIAT built its state-of-the-art Turin mega-factory, but look at them now!..

JDMJim

I saw a Fiat over the summer here where i live. out of country plates. neat little car, but very chick for sure. hipster car if I could put a word on it. My wife belives the xA didn't sell well because of it's looks/layout. Cuz them things are everywhere you look in Japan even by todays standards.

djct_watt

The Fiat 500 here in Asia has an interior quality level BETTER than a Mini, and better than even VW. It seriously feels like sitting in a nice italian hand bag or wallet. Real chrome, real leather, perfectly put together.

drviolin

The 500 does look good, particularly on the inside. Let's see how well it fares over several years in terms of reliability. Somehow I have my doubts about it, although anything is possible.

drviolin

Where would one see a car with out-of-country plates? Was this in the US?

808-213-503

Yeah, it took a handful of hours to collect enough monthly data going back to 2004, as you can imagine.

808-213-503

Thanks. I was going to add arrows pointing to the info release, because you can see the drop in sales of the xB, once people knew the next gen was coming. But it took so long to grab enough data to show the sales trends, that I figured just post it already.

If you look at the very tail end of the chart, the recently released new tC model has caused a spike in sales for October 2010...but it still pales in comparison to when the xB2 came out.

JDMJim

yea, sighted around Chicago. if memory serves, i wanna say Quebec. I've also seen a Mercedes A-Class that was from France here and a friend sent a pic to me of a Renault Megane..

drviolin

A Canadian plate is nothing special, but a French one? And A Renault? That is simply amazing. I can't imagine who would want to bring a car into the US (and have the money to do it). It must have been for an auto show or some other kind of presentation, I am sure.

JDMJim

people that move here for work can bring their car so long as it's LHD.

now back to topic. I was thinking. there is a mentality going on with Scion and the iQ. It would be a typical thought process and hear me out. I never really see people complain about how much a Smart fourtwo costs despite how small and slow it is. But it's intersting that everyone complains about how much an iQ costs ( less than a Smart) despite how small it is....catch my drift? I guess we really shouldn't worry about it's price honestly.

djct_watt

And that's exactly why the Smart Cars don't fly off the shelves... You don't hear many complaints on the smart for the same reason you don't hear complaints about Ssangyong of Korea... Nobody owns one or cares enough tonmake a fuss. With the Scion, there is/was a massive fan base.