Ethan on Frenzy found this article; good reading.

http://www.forbes.com/columnists/200...ahoo&referrer=

 

The Pontiac Solstice looks like a Miata on steroids.
I will never buy an American vehicle again. They are crap, just crap.

 

The sales figures for the Z are very,very impressive!

 

I guess the heyday of the Miata is over.It's too bad because it's a great car but the price kept increasing and the competition now is really tough.

 

i'm sure mazda will revive the miata for the next gen. there will always be a market for ~$20k roadster with great handling. it'll just need a little more hp.

 

They didn't break the Austin Martin catagory down and there were more Austin Martin's sold than NSX's. That is pretty interesting...

 

somewhat misleading... I know atleast the S2000 is a limited production, its low sales arent a fair representation of demand IMO, as they are marked up in many areas even though they are 4 years old. honda chooses not to sell more than that.

 

the guy who wrote that is pretty scary looking

 

With all the Z sales skyrocketing above the rest of the sport models available, it's no wonder that the exasperating appeal of the Z is slowly waning... at least around my area.

Nice read, Rat.

 

Actually, I'm pretty sure their target was 12,000 units a year. They were selling that many, but the volume has dropped down to under 8,000 now. Significant percentage wise.

 

In the grand scheme of things, that table is a bit deceptive. For some reason, he left out the Mustang. Ford sold 140,350 of those in 03 and 138,356 of them in 02! That decimates all the cars in that table.

Also, in the grand scheme of things, 36K cars in a year is not much. Nissan + Infiniti in the US sold 794K cars in the US in that time. The top selling vehicle in the US for 03 was the Ford F-series pickup which sold 845K! The best selling car for 03 was the Toyota Camry which sold 413K!

Supporting URLs:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040105/dem016_1.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040105/55525_1.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040105/lam059_1.html
http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2...03/152233.html (sorry couldn't find the table for 03, the copy on Yahoo expired, but the standings were similar)

 

(ugh! can't edit!)
Also, for context: GM sold 4.7 MILLION vehicles in the US in 03.

http://media.gm.com/servlet/GatewayS...n=3&docid=2215

 

well when only including 2seater sports cars, of course the numbers arent going to match truck and sedan sales, they are not for everyone. the mustang should be included though. most were the V6, like 85% of them I beleive.

 

I agree on the 2nd point. But, they did include some non-2 seaters. Most 911s I believe seat 4, the RX-8 definitely seats 4, and the TT coupes also seat 4.

 

yeah there were a few 4 seaters, but they were selective it seems, they didnt put the RSX-S or celica, but are they any slower than the RX8? not really. Im sure theres more that Im not thinking of.

 

Mustangs aren't sports cars. They are pony cars.

I kind of disagree with the guy's decision to include the Thunderbird, too