According to my Dealer, he has a letter dated 13th June that states the pre-orders to be 985. Still short of the 1000!

I'm not surprised, they need to get cars on the road.

Cheers
Oilman

Not supprised.

Most of my petrol head mates know what one is, but the rest of the country goes 'huh, a what?' when I say what car I've ordered.

No advertising campaign, barely a prescence on the web, not a lot in mazda dealerships either (and they;d be dead healpfull - 'No idea', 'sorry cant tell you' , 'Might be here this year').

Only people into cars and/or have been to motor events will know anything about the car.

Coupled with the bad press rotaries have had in the past will scare many away.

Mazda need to promote its reliability and economy/emmisions (shuch as they are) and let people know that it was only the turbo's that had poor reliability.

I agree with Oilman - the cars public profile will rocket once people start seeing them on the road IMO.

Mazda - if you are reading this - you should get a few cars into each region as soon as possible to get them seen on the roads.

I volunteer to drive one in the South Wales region - I drive almost the welsh length of the M4 every week day - good publicity!;) :p

Most dealers I've seen drive a new moddel around the area for a while just so it gets seen.

I'm willing to take a few days of work and do this for free!

With 3000 to be available this year, and around 1000 pre orders, that means there will be 2000 available to sell between Oct-Dec this year, although the initial delay may mean these 3000 may run into early 2004.

That means they need to sell on average 22 a day to shift them all.

Im sure they will sell a lot better once the car is out and visible with advertising etc, but is this a realistic figure?

Ford sell 10,000 Focus's a month.

6,000 3 series BMW's a month.

I'm sure mazda have more than 22 dealerships , but dont know how many.

On the other hand didnt Lancia only sell 80 in a year before they quit the UK?

Cloth steats???

Hey Rob, I would correct this before people start wondering what steats are and where they can get their hands on one! :D

As for 3000 in the first year, doesn't that mean that they will have 3000 to sell in the year following the release of the car? ie 3000 between Oct 2003 and Oct 2004?

I certainly hope this is the case as I can't see them selling all those cars before december.

Shahpor

Originally posted by shahpor
Cloth steats???

Ooops, for someone who types all day I sure do screw it up a lot lol.

I've never seen it stated anywhere if the 3000 figure was for calander year or 12 months following launch.

I know the 350Z's was calander year so they can say 1st year sold out etc.

1000 cars are supposed to be arriving in September, 600 in October, 800 in November and 600 in December. This information is from a letter sent to dealers dated 15/5/03 that was posted here about a month ago. I can't remember what thread it's in (I only have the info because I printed it out) but try searching for "Rimini" (site of European launch mentioned in letter).