Comments on: Subaru’s marketing dilemma

By: nick

nick — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:01:12 +0000

James – you hit the nail on the head … and have spoken the Toyota marketing mans darkest fear – yep, Toyota is indeed ‘a cardigan brand.’

So sensible and nice and well… yeeeshh ‘nice’…. and Mazda ..welll……Mazda is just about bringing up the rear, being the younger lad/ladettes ‘car of choice’ [bloody 'zoom zoom' here and 'zoom zoom' there] – in usually that shocking, god awful electric metallic blue …Oh I cant go on it’s to aesthetically challenging … Please somebody pass me that Fiat Ritmo brochure?

By: Cameron

Cameron — Sun, 04 May 2008 06:08:44 +0000

I think its a great idea for a car. Zippy, good looking and frugal. The best solution is for Subaru (Fuji heavy industries rather) to produce the car and sell it only through Toyota channels.
What ever happened to the SAAB 9-2 “saabaru”?? It was a lovely collaboration. I’d love for them to produce another model together – just fix up the “swedish” interior (v-ugly!!!).
Now Subaru – more efficient boxers please? I would have switched to Subaru a long time ago if only they could manage a decent cut on consumption. It seems to be their achillies’ heel in an otherwise outstanding line-up of vehicles.

By: jamison

jamison — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:30:09 +0000

Have you seen the price of engine rebuild for RX-7 FDs?
or Supra RZs?

Body wise, the cars assuming no crashes or accidents (big hits).. will last you 1 million kms or more… welding and materials have safety factors of more than double for “cheap” everyday cars… sports cars have even bigger safety factors on mechanical performance…

And define classics?…. I think some will have different perspectives on what car they are “passionate” with.
I’d still love a “clean” Nissan GTR R32 one day… its trash to a lot these days especially the amount of modified ones on the market getting trashed by 18 year olds…. but a clean un-modified one… well.. to me would be worth garaging and just taking for a spin weekends.

By: No Name

No Name — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:35:43 +0000

Aaah but Jamison old chum – what’s the point in having a nice “beast” and caging it up in the garage all week. You might as well drive it. Now if it was something really special – old clasic maybe or a Gallardo Syder then I would agree with you.

By: jamison

jamison — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:04:00 +0000

Yeah Toyota is definitely in need of “sportier” cars.
No doubt about that, heck even Toyota agrees.

Its just that everyday drive cars, cars that you dont care if you clock 100,000 Kms a year… cars that you dont mind not getting special high octane fuel, cars that you dont want to pay extra insurance for, cars that you dont want delays in getting parts when you need them ASAP…. basically A to B cars that are reliable… so I agree with James too.

My point, just so that even the young drivers understand is.

When you are on a market for a new car that you want to drive everyday…. Toyota has a good range, some are over priced than other manufacturers, but reliability over 4-5 years you definitely get your moneys worth on a Toyota.

I dont see how someone can justify driving turbo charged cars everyday to work, pay the extra dollars for premium fuel, pay the extra dollars for the 5000km service, pay the HUGE $$$ to maintain engine/body/mechanical parts after about 2 years.. assuming you drive it everyday… because darn it you will NEED to do that if you drive it everyday. If you’re a executive getting six figures a year, fair enough… but for the 97% of daily drivers… I dont see whats wrong with Toyota’s target audience.

I’d drive a corolla or a camry everyday no problems, then take out the beast come weekend.

Thats actually ONE huge reason Subaru opted to “soften” up the WRX. They turned a high maintenance weekend car, to a darn good daily driver in the 08 WRX… lots of whingers dont look at it from value perspective.
Thats why, the hot hatches these days are great alternatives if you just want 1 car that goes hard and is a great everyday driver.

By: Naughtyius Maximus

Naughtyius Maximus — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 09:31:12 +0000

Gee hope Toyota dont wreck Subaru as they build sportier cars then boring Toyota’s. Yawn……..zzz zzz zzz

By: OSU811

OSU811 — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:02:26 +0000

If i was to replace my liberty with a new car now, it would be the new xt manual forster for sure! I have had the pleasure of driving one and they are very refined/quiet, quick and responsive, very practical too,
and I think the new model looks really good just needs nice set of 18″ wheels and decent exhaust..

By: OSU811

OSU811 — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:38:51 +0000

mark i own a 2007 liberty wagon, and mate the only way to go with these cars is in the manual anyway much more fun and more resposive, and with the advantage of being cheaper and better on fuel, also rarer come time to sell..

By: Golfschwein

Golfschwein — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:18:26 +0000

I hear James.

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:24:44 +0000

Tom, you said:
“Out of the current subaru line-up, I won’t be replacing my MY04 liberty with any subaru, despite how much I love them. The new liberty’s have not evolved at all, and the rest of the range is currently bland. At least STi is trying their best with what they are given.”

I own an MY04 Liberty (non-turbo) as well and I hate to say it but I do agree to an extent. I drive an automatic and compared to other autos of this class it is well behind. I am hoping that the MY10 next year (genV) will make up for it and adopt a DSG style gearbox for us auto drivers.

By: james

james — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 23:22:37 +0000

Toyota have become a cardigan brand in Australia. Camry drivers are now the new Volvo drivers – the worst.

Toyota are great at mass appeal vehicles and corresponding sales but the brand these days is a total snooze-fest.

Aurion = camry
corolla = female’s runabout or company car
camry = A to B boredom in the extreme

Great cars – just bloody boring!

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 16:47:16 +0000

I really like what Toyota and Subaru are doing here. I don’t particularly mind this whole diluting of image- if Subaru sells their coupe for cheaper, and judging what happened with each generation of Impreza, it will definitely be fugly, I’d buy Subaru’s version over Toyota.

Well, price would be number one reason. Next would be over eager driver nannies, a lack of.

I just want this car asap.

By: booter

booter — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 12:43:43 +0000

subaru and toyota together…. now i understand what went so wrong with the new WRX.

By: XR2_Capri

XR2_Capri — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:54:37 +0000

toyota = McCar
Bland, not offensive but lots of people buy them because they just do a job or in the Mc theme stomach fillers

By: JW

JW — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:03:28 +0000

But chances are it’s going to look substantially different. Look at Lexus these days, while still retaining a lot of Toyota mechanicals underneath, the vehicles look substantially different, bar the LX570, which still is a better differentiated model than the last LX.

By: Ivan

Ivan — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:26:34 +0000

J, it’s more like AWD-FWR = RWD

So that would mean all the goodness of Subaru’s best performance value for money minus all of Toyota’s blandness and dullness equals a fun car.

Call me optimistic, but I don’t really care what badge it’s gonna be, as long as it’s cheap, light, realiable and RWD.

More HP doesn’t mean faster on a Downhill Race =)

By: Wheelnut

Wheelnut — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:24:09 +0000

Maybe Subaru should create a completely seperate car company; like Toyota did with Lexus; which will focus on RWD cars and Subaru continues with AWD.

In the same way that Toyota make boring uninspiring run-arounds [Yaris] and Lexus make cars with slightly more passion style etc [IS250]

By: OSU811

OSU811 — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:08:05 +0000

I definately think the answer would be for subaru to do a better equipped AWD version and toyota to stick with a more basic rwd only platform.. therefore subaru could stick with it awd only marketing and price it at a higher more premium price than the toyota.. I would pay more for the suby for sure..

By: harry

harry — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:44:49 +0000

I agree with Phil…. Buzz off Toyota. Unless you encourage Subaru to get back to their basic best.. and build us the semi aggressive, all wheel drive, rough and tumble, notey, rugged, minimilist cars they offered us before the current bland Subie line up, then get away from the drawing board and stick to your refrigerators.
I look forward to the day when I want to buy another Subie again. Its like I’ve lost an old mate with most of the crap they dish up as Subies at the moment.

By: o

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:38:34 +0000

subys not exactly niche market in australia