GodWhomIsMike

I just read an article in TIME magazine, and it is amazing to see how major auto companies try to target younger buyers (under 25 yrs old). Most of the cars they are coming out with to appeal to this age bracket often become favorites with older 40 something buyers such as the PT Cruiser. Toyota has stepped up and now offering the Scion - all I have to say is yuck!!!! These companies have to hire someone who is in MY age bracket, I am 22 years old. I have a much better idea of what type of car someone my age is looking for. You can't have a person who is in a older age bracket design cars for younger people because in the end, they are designing cars that appeal to themselves and they are getting older buyers. I think the Mazda RX-8 is a great car for someone my age, it is cool, it is an eye opener, it is sporty yet it is practical. The Scion is a mini-van lookingg thing, looks great for a young family but not for a single young driver. Lets see what cars I find appealing - the Mustang, the RX-8 and the Audi TT. They need to go the route of the coupe - with a nice sound system, good options, and a really sporty design - without all the wings, rims, flashy lights - just a nice looking car with a good dose of technology since my generation loves technology and can't get enough of it.

Anyone want to add to this? I'd love to see older people's opinions on this.

ectomort

You are mistaken on 2 points here.

First, you assume that a professional designer can only produce design which appeal to himself/herself. The skill in being a professional designer lies in understanding the requirements of your customer, and finding the intersection of those and the manufacturer's constraints; regardless of personal taste/preference.

Second, you assume that no two people of different ages can understand one another. If that were true, the music, film, video game, and clothing industries would not be nearly as successful as they are. Almost all of the marketing analysis and decisions in those industries are made by people decades older than the target consumers.

neofreak

iTrader: (1)

Everyone I know who "wants" a Scion is over 25, not to say that they'll get one, since they're all rotary crazy..

Honda did the same thing with the Element, too bad everytime I see one its a midaged man driving it.

brothervoodoo

And to dredge up a couple polls:

http://www.rx8forum.com/showthread.p...light=poll+age

http://www.rx8forum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2232

http://www.rx8forum.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=575

ReX-8

Interesting... Cuz almost every time I see one, usually is a college student (age 18 - 24) driver, and actually most of them are female. Especially around the Santa Cruz area.
On the other hand, I see more midaged men and women driving the WRX.

lefuton

the rx-8 is way too expensive for your typical sub 24 year old. tho it's not as bad as saying well the Porche 911 appeals to 18-24 year olds but you mostly see middle aged people driving that.

if you really want to appeal to sub 24 year olds, realistically, you need to build something for under $20k.

then there are the enthusiast minority that will sell themselves out of house and home to get a rotary. :D

Hercules

Speak for yourself! I'm 22 and buying this car *on my own*.

Of course... I have a good job that I work hellish hours to pay for it

Puppy1

a NEW good job!

cueball

I think that Herc is probably the exception on this. If they really want to target younger buyers than they should put the Razor into production. For those of you who are unfamilar with the Razor, it was a concept car produced by Dodge. It had only the bare minimal a car needed. It was just a 2 seat car with miata like handling for $15,000. A car like that would fly off the lot.

cgoddess

Have you guys ridden in the scion? Its actually a cool little car. Although it has no power, its got plenty of interior room. It feels like a bus to drive, with the long shifter and all, but its kinda a novel toy to play with. I don't think I would EVER buy one, but it was cute.

Back onto the subject, I used to be a regular on the RSX message forum, and for a car that costs anywhere from $23-26,000(more of them on the high side than the low) I was surprised to see the number of teenagers and early twenty somethings that were driving it. Especially when the car was designed for the late 20's/early 30's crowd. The reason so many were driving it was because their parents bought them it(or helped them buy it). The RSX is still an entry level car to the middle-upper class families, and a great car for first time drivers. I think that you will find the RX-8 will fall into the sam catagory as the RSX. Oh, I know the price tag will discourage a few, but I think that many of the kids will find some way to have mom and dad pay for a cool first car.

I also think you will find that many kids in their early twenties buy their first brand new cars on their own. Its a rite of passage. My fiance did it when he was 22 with an RSX. I did it at 20 with the RSX. hehe Hell, I hid the car for a week before I found the courage to tell my mom what I did! I've got tons of friends that have purchased Z's, WRX's, Expeditions, etc all in their early 20's through college jobs. The RX-8 is still an entry level car that many people in the 18-25 age bracket can afford. Most people this age dont have house payments, kids, or sig other to drain away funds that can be used towards a car payment. I think thats why its easier for us to buy this car than middle aged people-unless they are DINK's.

Ahura

I totally agree with you. I'm 23 and buying the car completely on my own. This will be my first new car purchase. A majority of my friends have no expenses other than rent/utilities/food and don't care about retirement, so they spend it on lucrative things like new cars and international travel. To be exact, my rent/utilities are only $400/mo, I walk/bike to the office, and I have no debt whatsoever. The financial benefit of roommates Plus I moved in with some of my friends so I don't have roommate nightmares. I can still afford this car on my meager $24k/yr salary. Am I close to the least paid buyer here? (Excluding the ones with parental payment plan). I am putting around $20k down on it. Car payments and insurance total to around $350/mo, leaving me plenty of money to spare at the end of the month. I just don't know what I would do if I was making like say ... $50k/yr

Elara

I have to disagree with some of you. While you may be in your early 20s, you are in the minority buying a car this expensive (you're on the internet in a car group- you (and the rest of us) represent a very small minority of the car buyers out there). The RX-8 is definitely not an entry-level car for the young-twenties age group. The average price of a new car is something like $27k, and the majority of them are bought by middle-aged adults with incomes of over $45 k. That puts the RX-8 smack in the middle, not near any entry-level car. It may be entry-level for upper-middle class, but what percentage of the population actually falls into that? Perhaps 20%? If you are in that segment, it makes sense that your friends are as well, which could explain why so many of them are getting nicer cars like the RSX and the RX-8 as well. However, the majority of people your age cannot and do not buy cars like this. And I'm not arguing here, I just think you're getting a bit defensive about a subject that you may not have the widest possible view of.

Keiqo

Well, I'm 23 working at my first job out of college and I completely know what I'm going to do with my 50k salary buy an RX-8 and buy a house. I had to do the house first, because they do appreciate after all. It's crazy that I'm a civil engineer explaining to my Mechanical Engineer gear head friends what I'm getting. Can't wait to show it to them.

ELX13

>warning...thread creep...<
lu·cra·tive - adj. Producing wealth; profitable: a lucrative income; a lucrative marketing strategy.

spending money on new cars and traveling is no where near lucrative! (unless the cars are restoration projects and the travel is for business, which i doubt you're talking about. and even those cases are iffy.) however, saving money for retirement could be construed as being "lucrative."

>...end thread creep and english lesson...<

Ahura

Good point. My views are probably restricted since most of my friends have college degrees. But I still think the RX-8 highly appeals to recent college grads with their newly discovered salary. That 20% figure is about the same as the percentage of people that have bachelor's+ degree.

Ahura

Oops, sorry for the creep Well, I won't deny that my vocabulary is pretty bad. I guess I spent too much time concentrating on math & science and not enough on literature. Oh well, I'm happy with my brain content.

I'm shutting up for now in this thread.

cgoddess

OK I agree with you about the small demographic skew b/c of the internet. I think geographic factors enter this as well.

As a part time computer sales in So Cal, I made about $40k/yr. Technically, since I was a household of 1, that puts me in the middle class income level. If I lived somewhere where the cost of living was much less, I could easily afford the RX-8. Living in Orange County, there's no way I would be able to afford it, and rent/morgage, and school, etc. (cheapest brand new detached house I can find in OC is $360k)

Since the RX-8 costs the same whether you are in Bel Aire or middle-of-nowhere, its stands reasonable to assume that most areas of the country(since the majority of the US population density per land is low-hence low cost of living) will have many college kids on part time jobs(with appx pay grade as I had) that can afford RX-8's.

Not meant as a flame. Honestly, I don't really care one way or the other (I see both sides of the coin). I just like a friendly debate. Hopefully more people will post and we can see some activity on this board. Its just about people expressing opinions. :D

Oh yeah. sorry if my points came across garbled. Its late and I'm too tired to make them super articulate. Not that I don't want to, its just that past a certain hour my brain functions very slowly.

Elara

Again, I think you're missing the point- $40k is not the norm for a single person household, let alone a kid just straight out of college working part-time (in fact, I don't know of ANY job that you can make that working part-time- you're very lucky!). Most are going to be making between $25-30k full time, IF they're lucky.

Wing

As someone else stated, it really depends on where you live.

Someone I was talking to awhile back said he was moving to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. He was getting an IT job, that paid only $15k a year. But, he bought a house there for like $40k! Like a 2 acre lot, huge house etc!

So location makes a BIG difference. IE. My house cost me near $200K cdn. The same house in my home town would be around $60k cdn! But my salary is A LOT more than it would be if I lived in my home town.

Average salary in my hometown is probably $20-$25k cdn a year, here in Ottawa I'd venture to guess it's double that at $50k, I'm only 25 and I know I'm in the minority as I make close to $80k a year. But I'll still have a hard time to pay for this car.

Mortgage is $1200 a month + bills + gas + savings. Does leave much!

RX7 Guy

I find the very concept of "age groups" offensive. Why do I need some manufacture deciding for me whether or not a particular car is appropriate for my "age group"???

It's nothing more than a ploy perpetrated by manufactures to get older buyers to be "embarrassed" into buying more car than they need.

Many of us would be completely satisfied with a little Civic or Tercel or whatever if it wasn't for the looser connotation that's associated with an older person driving a modestly priced car.

I think it's important we all realize the manipulation that's taking place & make a concerted effort to resist it…(Super Man Voice) M-U-S-T R-E-S-I-S-T.....M-U-S-T N-O-T B-U-Y T-O-O M-U-C-H C-A-R J-U-S-T T-O I-M-P-R-E-S-S O-T-H-E-R-S

G-man

Well, this is likely the most intelligent comment on this sugject I have seen yet. I know when I got tired of waiting for my RX-8 and bought an EVO, the dealer has one EVO of every color in stock has had 100 applicants for a test drive the first week that 2F2F movie came out. The only problem is that in order to rate a test drive, you have to score A-D in your credit report. 90%+ of the applicants for a test drive were 16-25 and 100% of them FAILED the credit check. You know you are in trouble if you are 25 and your credit is already a wreck!

Of course, sure there are exceptions out there, but there are always exceptions to every rule. I walked in and dropped $31,000 in cash for a car that had $5,000 of markup above $32,000 to almost $38,000 and walked out with the keys. Ended up getting the car for $1000 over invoice. I was only the 2nd to qualify for a test drive and the 1st to be able to buy one. I commend anyone who works hard, has good credit and can afford either an RX-8 or an EVO, but I have to agree that manufacturers need to focus on the under $20,000 range if they want to capture most of the 16-25 market.

Hercules

On a postive note, my being 22 years old.. I got my credit check done from Equifax today (cost me $12.95), and I got a FICO score of 726, which is in the top 4% of the country.

So I'm pretty happy with my credit. I've been very good about taking out my credit cards, spending a lot, and then paying them all off :D

I've had credit building for the past 5 years to get approved for my RX-8... and with my score now known, I won't have a problem at all.