im thinking more along the lines of since it hasnt been officially announced yet, they may be preparing for that. i mean, its supposed to be announced at tokyo in october i think, so why not get a stockpile of them, and once its announced be able to deliver the next day?

pure speculation mind you. im not a sales person/guy/thingy ;)

It's simple supply and demand. Dealers don't want to be stuck with an over supply like what happened in '04. So they'll adjust their inventory to meet what they think demand will be until the '06 arrives.

There was plenty of advertising when the car was new: X-men 2 movie, lots of TV commercials etc., but now the hoopla has died down. Current sales aren't bad for a sports car, but Mazda really needs to inject something new (i.e. MS 8 hint hint) soon to keep interest levels up.

I was just adding a few thoughts of my own on the subject :p But your version sounds more well, sound.

I agree with you we are being ripped off in Autralia with ALL jap import cars, the 8 should be $15,000 cheaper than it is, and the ratio is about the same with the MX-5, 3,6.

Mazda Australia priced the 8, 6 months before its release when the $$$ was 0.57 cents, now its 0.75 and has been for over a year!

I was at my dealer yesterday for the recall and I noticed a TON of 8's on the lot. So I found my sales guy and asked him to show me an 06. He told me none were in sight! Everything on the lot is an 05. Out of curiosity I looked on the Mazda site and found 220 05 8's in DFW. 220!!!!!! It's way late in the year for that kind of inventory. Whats going on?

Aug production numbers
 

Mazda released the Aug RX-8 Production numbers...........3528

red at 9 ... over in the edmunds 8 forum, one of the mazda dealers posted that his 06's orders are expected to arrive in late dec or early jan and that 05's will be built and shipped thru the month of November!!

Red9, My local dealer has a new YELLOW 8 sitting on the lot...

Yellow is back......Awesome! My 3 year old wants a yellow everything, she can't stop talking about the yellow 8's she saw at the Gulf States Rotary BBQ last weekend. With regard to current "saturation" of new 05 8's here in DFW, I just hope the resale value doesn't tank when the inevitable incentives show up.

They're not back, it's still left from '04... I know at least one dealer around here has a "new" 04 still on the lot.

a dealer close to my house has a 04 mazda 6