[MauriSSio]

Originally Posted by Stew

Actually for some unknown reason those stupid things are selling as quick as they can build them, WTF?!?! And aren't they like 70k for a freaking tarted up 16k IQ????

Anyways, on to the ops question, which i think has been covered here.

1: price, it is not only the price of new panels, but what it would cost to make a profit off of what would certainly be a low volume car. The lower the volume, the more you have to charge to cover cost and profit.

2. ease of use, the more exotic it looks, the less user friendly it is going to be. If someone is lookingfor a 20k car, they are not looking for a garage queen, but more something that is going to be driven everyday. Hense it must be user friendly, roomy, have a back seat, easy to use controld, and still maintain the price point.

3. Another point of an entry level car is to get into one of the manufacturers more expensive offerings, hence everything on the next step, must be a step up.

4. The target market for such a car would be way to small to make it something exotic looking, with all the exotic faults. Miatas sell in ver small numbers as mentioned and even those tiny 2 seaters start around 26k I believe

You won't see exotic, but small cars are getting better looking. Hyundai is even going to be offering a coupe version of the Elantra later this year. Of course they do this by keeping all of the sedans hard points, interior, etc in tact, which dictaes he body deminsions. hence why they can even offer a coupe and why it could not have an exotic look.

hope maybe this helps some.

it does help some. This thread is solely for discussion. I understand the market would be small for said car, but the market DOES exist. It would be for the miata, s2000, RX7- RX8, the new Subie/Toyota BRZ - type market. maybe the price range would go up a few thousand, shoot maybe even 10,000 but there are still no cars in that segment that look even remotely close to as beautiful as some ferraris (or lambos or whatever italian or european exotic) even though they have roughly similar dimensions. Maybe it WOULD be a flop, but as far as i can remember the last to try was a fiero. You would think it would be attempted more often.