Oh wow, we posted almost the exact same thing (only worded differently) less than a minute apart.

 

I guess I wasn't clear; I wasn't talking about just the Supra in that last bit, but 90s import cars in general. Anyone saying they ALL looked like *** has something against import cars. And looks had nothing to do with the sales failure IMO, it's more that nobody was paying that much for a Toyota. It was $40k in 1993, that's like $5-10k more than the Corvette was, and more than twice what an F-body was back then.

 

I think he answered that in the "Big 3 executives" part.

Apples to oranges really... The turbocharged Supra cost about 10k more in 1994 than the GTO did in 2004. Had they sold for 30k, let alone the 20k most cars were fetching back then, sales would've been huge, I'm sure. It's also about price... I happen to like all the vehicles listed, in the looks department.

 

The biggest reason for the failure of the Supra in America (as well as the 300ZX and RX7) was that the sports car market itself was falling apart. The C5 Corvette was supposed to be released 3-4 years before it actually was, but GM was biding its time to make sure the car wouldn't tank. When sales slowed in America, the big Japanese companies pulled out, plain and simple. But the people that DID buy those cars were diehard fans, in general. When I was in middle school, my friend's dad had TWO turbo Supras. One was stock, and one was BPU.

 

But was it?
The Corvette survived it.
The Porsche 911 survived it.
The Viper survived it.
The Camaro/Firebird survived it (until 2002) as did the Mustang with no break in production. Not exactly 'sports cars' of course but neither was the Toyota.
The reinvented Z car came back MUCH later of course with some success.
The entirely reinvented RX came back but without quite as much success.

Like I'd said, a sales failure is still a sales failure no matter what reason or excuse one wants to pin on it.

 

Really now? Since when have sales figures ever determined how good a car looks??? Ferraris and Lamborghinis sell like ****, so they must look pretty damn ugly to you, right? While on the other hand, shitbox econo cars sell awesome, does that make them any more attractive?? Great argument

 

i remember when third gens were out while they were better built cars supras were alot more money. a turbo version in stock form was alot more than fox body or a 5.7 equipped TA or IROC. mid 30s if i remember correctly and didnt perform as well.


then when the those TT supras were available in the early to mid 90s they were superior cars to C4 Vettes but they cost a fortune. a 50k car back then was a ton of money.

i just think toyota priced themselves out at that time.

 

Cars I made bold of course looked better then the domestic cars he posted, they also cost quite a bit more and were more the "performance" cars for those automakers of that time. That being said to make the comparison for those cars why not add..

Mustang, Camaro, Firebird, Corvette, Viper...etc for the American side all of which IMO look better then those you listed in bold and were all much more popular then the import performance cars that only became popular in the earl 2000s when the whole tuner thing started to get big.

The Supra never sold well when It was "new" here because Americans all wanted a big gas sucking V8 performance car, it's simple as that because look how much cheaper gas was then compared to now. If I was in the new performance car market in the late 90s when gas was what around $1 per gallon I would most certainly pick up a LT1/LS1 F-Body over a Supra. As to what I said above the whole tuner thing with imports was growing/starting over here in the states and when Fast and Furious started on the big screens the younger generation was after Civics,Eclipse and the ta dah! Supra!

 

I'm not gonna get into the whole Supra thing here because most of the reasons it didn't sell well are already posted here (high price for a Toyota, performance guys wanting a V8 powered car or Porsche/Ferrari/Lambo even though the Supra was very competitive performance wise at the time), but the bottom line was in the 90's the average car was recieved well from the general populous.

Everyone in this forum can say they thought domestic cars look better, thats because this is LS1tech! I guarantee if you talked to the average consumer back in the 90s they would tell you how much interior quality of imports were compared to domestics as well as exterior quality, reliability and fuel economy.

I'll even give you one. My friend owns an LS2 RX-7. Still has the factory interior. I raced him a while back in my Z06 (when it was stock), he kicked my *** obviously but thats another story. Afterwards we did a walkthrough of his car. and looked at my car afterwards. His car is a 93 RX-7 and has a better interior than my 2002 Z06. Even though his car is smaller the quality, fit and finish of the interior and exterior was far better.

My uncle has a 93 C4 Corvette. The interior of that car looks like KITT from Night Rider without all of the buttons (and thats not in a good way) When a 1993 Camry interior at the time would put its interior to shame.

But what the big 3 have always done right are trucks and sports car offering, performance wise. While they had shitty interiors they offered the best performance for the dollar and trucks are dead reliable.

 

Notice the ones that I highlighted in your post are American icons... hence why the American companies kept them in production. When sales slowed to the point where Toyota/Nissan/Mazda didn't think it was worth their time to keep importing the cars, they cut their losses. The Supra/Fairlady Z/RX7 continued for several more years in Japan. And the Corvette was VERY close to not making it, in case you didn't know.

http://www.c5registry.com/production/97.html
http://www.edmunds.com/chevrolet/corvette/1999/
The American manufacturers simply had more to lose by cancelling their icons. It definitely had nothing to do with quality or performance, because the Japanese offerings were extremely competitive performance-wise, and very few people would argue that the American sports cars of the 90s were higher quality.

 

And the real problem was that "the big 3" bureaucracy was to slow to adapt.

And who's fault was that? During the gas crisis of the 1970's the imports from Japan were in the right place at the right time.

Isn't the point of business to make money? Obviously what the American manufacturers were doing wasn't making money anymore.

And yet, to some extent, they still are at the cow. Milking it for pensions and insurance.

While some of the media, ahem, Car and Driver for example, think that the BMW 3 series can't do anything wrong and that Honda Accords are just always terrific cars, are quick point out that domestic cars have sub-par interiors (current Corvette comes to mind) they do seem to rarely find fault with other countries cars.

Lutz himself is VERY guilty of this with the GTO. It looked like the love child of a Alero and Cavalier for God's sake.

To say DSM's is interesting considering that their build quality is not exactly the envy of others. And RX-7's, Supras, and NSX were all sold in very small numbers. Especially considering the Corvettes sales trumped them by a wide margin. Looks did not equate sales. And have you looked at the out going Civics interior or the new Civics for that matter? Its flat out ugly and distracting. And few things scream cheap rental louder than a new Corolla. Sit in one. The interior is made of hard plastic, and dull surfaces.

This is exactly right. These are the people who read Consumer Reports before they buy a car. They just want to go from a-b with minimal fuss.

 

DSMs aren't bad if taken care of, they get a bad rep from 16 year olds putting a boost controller on them and cranking it up as high as they can. And we were talking 90s cars, not brand new ones, and the 90s Civic's and Corolla's interiors were MILES ahead of GMs for build quality. I haven't been in any 2011 GMs, but the 05-09s I've been in where all pretty poorly made still. Not quite the rattle traps of the 90s; but it seems like stuff wears out on them much faster than it should, and they are still made with cheaper materials.

 

Considering that Chrysler used some DSM engines in a few cars like the 3.0 V-6 used in Stratus and Sebrings, I know of more than one or two that have had some serious issues that had nothing to do with turbos, 16 year olds or abuse. I wasn't even referring to modded cars at all. Even going back to the 80's DSM has had issues with engines like the 2.6 inline 4. Mitsubishi has never been near the top of charts for trouble free cars.

 

At least the overseas manufacturers don't have a 3/4 ton and 1 ton truck platform thats worth anything.

Funny seeing guys with a Tundra trying to pull a 15,000 lb trailer and it's huffing and puffing and squatting

 

I think you are confusing "DSM" with "Mitsubishi."
You shouldn't be towing a 15,000lb trailer with any 1/2 ton pickup... that's just common sense.

 

Ditto, but of course... DSM's have been used in many Mitsu's.

Most of us shouldn't be towing that much even with a 1 ton. More often than not, when I see that much being towed by anything smaller than a 1 1/4 ton, it causes frustration because the headlights point to the stars and the tail lights to the dirt. I've seen it done even without a 5th wheel or over axle(gooseneck) trailer... Concerns me.

 

When I said DSMs I was talking about the Eclipse/Talon/Laser.

 

And in true businessman Lutz form he failed to take any responsibility for the 350,000+ workers GM threw out on the street and how many local and state economies were devastated as a result of these decisions. Ill grant the burdens our contracts have on these companies but if these guys truly cared about selling a product, I would hope they would scream until they are blue in the face about ensuring the public has disposable income to buy the products they sell.

 

Considering the plant that produced them is still a Mitsubishi plant in Normal, Ill I will lay the blame with Mitsubishi. Lord knows Chrysler wouldn't have made it out of the 80's without them but their engines are not exactly world class. And DSM is Mitsubishi-

http://www.mitsubishimanufacturing.c...tory/index.asp

at least it has been since 1991.

 

Common sense and the general populace of America don't fit together

Just an FYI the most I've towed with my 3/4 ton was approximately 13 to 15K pounds, double axle 26 foot trailer that weighed approx 3500-4000 pounds and a ton and a quarter military vehicle that weighed approx 9,000 lbs. Duramax pulled it and stopped it with no effort at all.