Lithium Lotus

So a car with a V8 is NOT fun to drive and is only for straight lines? Those poor bastards that bought those Z06's.

BMW just put a V8 in the M3 [granted it's only a 4.0l], Ferrari, Aston Martin, and Mercedes use V8's too.

ASH8

For a few months maybe...
I finally want to purchase one (July Delivery in Australia), however, I am really disappointed with what Mazda have done to the car, it's more corporate and lost some of it's individuality.
The engine improvements are a good sign.

But a 16X is going to use the same (providing DI is successful) amount of gas if not more.
What made the RX-8 unique (apart from the RENESIS) is that it is a true 4 Door sports car with its freestyle rear doors...the fact it could seat 4 adults is a selling plus.

Any new rotary IMO would have to have a "unique" aspect to set it apart.
Perhaps for the first time the larger capacity twin rotor add hype, but this would really only be understood by rotary enthusiasts. Would it translate into sales?

I just cant see where a profitable business plan can be mounted for the bean counters to be satisfied.
Any new model would have to have the initial sales success of the RX-8 to make the car a reality.
Again, the 8's initial success was also due to a 'new generation' of rotor heads and apart from Japan the world had a 10 year new car ROTARY drought.

Today Petrol (Gas) here hit $1.57 AU a litre or close to $7.00 AU a gallon!!!!

I really think the motoring world is in for a big shock soon as the buying public will
not consider any model of car that consumes copious amounts of fuel.

Mazmart

iTrader: (12)

It would stand a chance if the bugs are all gone and they spend some advertising money on it. If it's a problem child, don't promote it. If it's worthy of fighting, then please, shout it from the mountain tops.

I hope they'll take advantage of the very important racing victory at the 'Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona' scored earlier this year.

Paul.

Ike

How many people in the US do you think even know about the 24 hours of Daytona let alone give a damn about it? In addition what does that car really have to do with an actual RX-8, it's a tube frame car with a 20B and carbon fober body panels.

The new RX-8 will see a tiny boost in sales most likely but give it a couple months and the sales will be close to as bad as the current MY.

Mazmart

iTrader: (12)

Ike, Ike, Ike ,

Some people know about Daytona 24, some people don't. My point is not to illustrate the prowess of the car or it's chassis, but rather to address a marketing angle that I don't think is being properly capitalized on. It's partially the marketer's job to enlighten the buying public as to what a 'Big deal' the Daytona 24 is.

Is there something irritating to you, perhaps on a personal level, with the victory Mazda had at that event and the package that they are allowed to run?

Are you using your crystal ball for your assessment of the 09 sales figures? I personally wish them the best, since I am biased and do have vested interest in Mazda succeeding.

Paul.

JRichter

Your right it doesn't have much to do with the stock car but that didn't stop Mazda from dropping related advertisements in every car magazine I have/look at around the time. It's the name Mazda that is getting promoted - not the actual race car. This has been done since the beginning of racing and advertisement whether the car is anywhere close to the same or not. What mainstream car company has not tried to cash in on any racing success?

playdoh43

contrary to popular belief on this site, Mazda marketing actually does not have unlimited funds.

they havnt ran much rx8 ads to begin with. they get much better return on investment when spending their marketing dollars on cars that actually sells well like the new 6, the 3 and the CX series.

they are a profit maximizing firm, not a fan service

Mazmart

iTrader: (12)

This is Mazda's dillema; as small as they are, there is much less money available to spend on advertizing than their direct competition. If they can't properly market some of their product they can reap the obvious results. Why even make a low profit, low production car that does little to enhance your image. If they can move 1500 cars a month, it would be worth it. My argument is, there is a correlation between the ad money spent and the resultant sales. The methods of advertizing are changing based on the 'evolution' of the market. The Mazda 5 sells practically on it's own, but it is the exception to the rule. The Millenia sold rather poorly (Relative to competition) and I can't recall EVER seeing an ad for one. The magazines kept calling it "The best kept secret" when they did comparos with it. This is the catch 22 that Mazda always seems to find themselves in: Do we have enough faith in our product to spend limited ad money or will we gamble that they'll sell on their own?

It's a balancing act and a tricky process, moving from where they are to where they want to go.

Paul.

Ike

So are they going to be promoting the race and race series or the RX-8. Sure feels like your post is aimed towards promoting the new RX-8 and I fail to see what the Rolex car has to do with an actual RX-8 other than the shell makes it appear that it does.

Nothing irritating me and I'm happy for Mazda and their victory. I also wish Mazda the best with the '09 RX-8 as I'd like to see the rotary and RX-8 stay in production. However, the new car is a pretty feeble attempt to boost sales and I'll be surprised if it has more than a minimal impact on sales.

N rider89

all it has to do is look like an rx8. thats enough to help sell it to some people.

Detrich

w/ the rx8, mazda just needs to study apple's business model. price it above the competition to keep the kids and idiots away but not so high as to encroach into the luxury car market. promote & market it as a cool, sophisticated, enthusiasts' car that's hip and not your run-of-the-mill offering. (like the ipod, iphone etc.) also keep putting profits back into r&d to make it better, all the while building relationships with 3rd party aftermarket vendors to help ensure those products don't break the engines and help improve performance and reliability.

the one thing mazda cannot control is the resell value of the 8. if they could do something to fix that, then the market for 8's would be much more solid.

Ike

Mazda is probably the biggest reason the resale is poor...

Detrich

what can they do to help the resale? buy back all the used ones at a premium?

it's difficult.

playdoh43

they can help resale by creating stronger demand... by building a superior product that is better relative to other cars in the segment, has more hp, handles better, does not have reliability issues, is more fuel efficient, etc etc.

when that happens, demand will rise and resale value will go up.

superglue

http://youtube.com/watch?v=qHO8l-Bd1O4

Detrich

i personally like the fact that i dont' see 3 dozen rx-8's on my commute to and from work- the same way i see honda accords and bmw 3-series cars.

i think reliability, hp, fuel efficiency are all contributing factors and would help resell value. the rx-8 is already a very unique offering though. it just needs to be even better to help resale value.

raspyrx7

your just mad you didn't wait n buy a used one...haha. Seriously though low resale on the RX8 is due to a couple things IMO. 1 is that they're a niche/enthusiasts car... anyone in the racing scene or rotary die hard will be all about them... but how many people does that incompass? Problem is, a lotta people are bench racers and on paper the RX8 doesn't seem to add up to $30k when compared to what else is out there and what it'd take to modify it. 2 I'm not sure if it was Mazda or specific dealers but a few years back some crazy $8k rebates/incentives were offered and that instantly lowers the value. Also its not uncommon knowledge how much tweaking was done the first few years on them, so buyer confidence isn't overlly high. Me personally, soon as the wife's 5 is paid off I'm getting a used 06-08 for $10-15k. Then I'll not worry as much about gas prices because I'm not getting DP'd by buying a new car and bad gas mileage.

Ike

Mazda way overestimated the demand of the RX-8 and flooded the market with RX-8s that sat on lots for ages and were sold well below invoice. Then they did it again the following year. That had a huge impact on the poor resale.

Mazmart

iTrader: (12)

As intelligent as you are, I'm surprised that you don't see the correlation between racing victories and sales in the automotive world. That's the whole reason that there's money budgeted for racing; it's advertising. I would argue that the Rolex GT series is money better spent for Mazda than the ALMS prototype money and the whole reason is brand recognition and people identifying the cars on track. People who see ads featuring the racing RX8 GT cars don't all know that the engine size is different and that it's not a 'real' RX8 chassis, nor do they care.

I have no earthly idea what sales of the 09 will be like. I just wouldn't mind seeing a little more of the ad budget go it's way than in the recent past. Couldn't hurt IMO.

Paul.

Ike

I'd like to think that I see through the marketing of a race car to boost sales of a street car because I'm intelligent. I sorta get it when it comes to cars like the Evo and Impreza because in that case the street car and race car exist because of one another. Plus they were factory efforts where a lot of what they learned on the track was applied to the cars and a lot of things on the street cars were implemented the way they were because of the track going aspirations. I simply don't see the same thing happening with the RX-8 and Speedsource car for various reasons which I'll touch on a little below.

How much does Mazda really have to do with the Speedsource cars? It's certainly not a factory effort to my knowledge. Seems like it would be a little odd to advertise a car and a race win when the car isn't a factory effort.

Don't get me wrong, I know what you're saying... However, if Mazda wanted to promote the RX-8 based on race efforts taking it even more grassroots would make more sense to me. Talk about the SCCA wins where the cars at least have a lot in common with a bone stock RX-8.

Lets say Mazda takes 10 million and spends it on an ad campaign for the RX-8 in the US. 10 million is a pretty small amount for an ad campaign. Keep in mind that some of our current presedintial candidates have spent 1 million just advertising in two states for a single day... Lets say that ad campaign helps Mazda sell another 3500 cars, which might be a little lofty. With those 3500 extra cars sold you've spent nearly $3,000 to advertise each of them. I'd imagine numbers like that is the reason why you don't see a lot of cars advertised, especially more niche cars. Perhaps I'm way off since I'm just tossing out numbers, but I'm sure Mazda has a pretty good reason for not advertising the RX-8 more.

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

It doesn't matter to the public if it the race car is like the street car or not. It looks like the street car. GM & Ford sold cars for years based on look a like cars in NASCAR.

Ike

Lets talk apples to apples here. Are you really going to compare a series that very few people even know exists to NASCAR? Also, it's pretty tough to say how a car being in NASCAR translates to car sales. Just one example, the Ford Taurus was the best selling car in america for some years running until 1996. The Taurus didn't debut in Nascar until 1997 which is the year sales started to slump and the Camry and Accord sales surpassed the Taurus. For the next decade, while the Taurus did well in NASCAR, sales continued to falter until it was briefly discontinued.

N rider89

i did just see an ad for an rx8 in the new playboy

8 Maniac

iTrader: (1)

as for the whole marketing thing... it doesnt really matter how close it is... if you convince the consumer to make the connection, you have a better chance at sales. I know someone who was trying to sell a 7 and took it down when he found out there was going to be an FC in the fast and furious movie. He hopes to sell it more, and I honestly wouldnt be surprised if he does. Marketing does not always mean that you assume the consumer will logically analyze an ad and use that to determine if they like it or not.

One thing I love about psychology is finding out just how stupid people are and the fact that it applies to the majority of us.

Eight

iTrader: (2)

The lemans victory back then was a huge boost for mazda's rx7s sales, which proved that the rotary engines were reliable, (at least in japan). Even though the 787b was a totally differnt car from the rx7 it didn't matter to the customers.

Since lemans race is a pretty big race to the japanese, more people watch it, therefore the more impact it had to the buyers...

and it would help mazda if a little more people knew about the rolex gt, or anyother races other than nascar, which has the majority of race fans in the states, or atleast in my city where people are nascar crazy.

Even I didn't know about the rolex race until an article with MAZDA RX 8 WINS !caught my eyes...