After someone stated in an early thread that nissan has sold more than 100,000 Z's, I got to thinking and did a little math......

Being very conservative with my numbers I assumed that the average Z sold for $30,000

Multiply that by 100,000 units and I came up with 3 Billion Dollars in sales just for the Z. I wonder how much of that is profit. It just doesn't seem possible in gross sales, but I checked my math 3 times.


I'd like to see Nisssan's books.....

 

yup...3 billion sounds right by that calculation. Even if half of it is profit...thats pretty nice chunk of change.

 

true, but isnt this money divided among many parties, ex. dealer, nissan, etc.

 

anyone that thinks that car companies are making 1/2 of MSRP in profit, they are smoking something and i want some. You think GM and ford would be in such deep crap if they had 50% margins, lol, i think not.

 

They dont make crap off off of the car, its all in the maintnance and mainly the parts area!

 

For bringing the Z-car marque back, they deserve every penny! Just make sure they know we expect the best of Nissan attention from now on.

 

Automakers make profits in one digit figures. Toyota and Nissan have the highest margins in the industry if I remember correctly. Nissan is somewhere around 13-14% while Toyota is 11-12%, while GM and Ford are around 5-6%. I had read this in WSJ sometime back. If I find the article I will link it.

It is said the GM has lost around $1200 per car they have sold in the first half of this year. Thats a lot.

 

The last time I heard (and that's been a few years), it costs about $1 billion to bring a new car model to market. If their profit on $3 billion is 5%, they've made only $150 million on the Z so far!

 

I cant imagine how much money is being dispensed into the "cure" for the feathering issue as well as tranny.

 

Should of done it right in the first place. Thats the cost of doing business.

 

No doubt the 2003 models have some issues (mostly tires).

HOWEVER: check out the forums on other high performance sports cars and you will find that they, too, have normal street driving tire problems. Take a look at the Porsches, the Audis or BMWs. Most of those cars have no pretense at performance except the Porsche and BMW--and they have tire wear problems similar to the 350Z.

When Nissan brought the Z-car marque back, it was with a decision that it should be a PERFORMANCE sports car in the tradition of the 240Z. The front suspension was duly designed to impart variable camber, depending upon velocity, to yield maximum traction/turn-in. Go fast and brake hard, and it works wonderfully--but it DOES cost you rubber. Slow down and the tires will last much longer. Go fast, and you will be pleased with the handling and disappointed in the tire wear.

It's the price of doing business in the performance car field. If you want a car to tool around town in without wearing out the tires, consider a Ford Focus.