As for Chinese, people tired of VW since it was dominated for too long. The Golf and Polo were badly rated by the Chinese.
I don't blame them...
Follow Porsche and BMW.
Porsche:
They are not quite ready yet to enter the mass-markets and perhaps they never will.
However.
Nobody thought of a Porsche SUV, yet they developed the Cayenne and so far, it seems to be a huge success. This is an SUV with 340 and 450 HP, and their engineering is superb and it is a "warning call" to Toyota who as good as their Land Cruisers (and L/C Lexus) are... they are beginning to exagerate their prices. At current levels, one would easily consider the Cayenne and you get a LOT more engineering, performance, and HP with the Porsche option.
www3.us.porsche.com
For now, the Boxter would be their "Mass" model... -g
content3.us.porsche.com
However at about $ 42,000 plus, it can hardly be considered a competitor of the Accura -gg
Having said all that...
I would not be surprised that Porsche is considering an onslaught of the Chinese Market... such a market is simply too large to ignore and as it grows and evolves into a sizable consumer market... there is no question in my mind Porsche will have its finger on it...
I just cannot wait for the initial reaction of the population of Shanghai once they have been exposed to the "decadent" sport of Formula One next September. A new thirst for high performance vehicles is about to be unleashed upon them... and this ain't no "video-game", this is the real stuff... translated to street cars and Porsche, along with Ferrari and BMW, are at the forefront of it all
The exhilaration of acceleration of 0-60 in less than 6 (*) seconds will create a new wave of addicts to speed of unseen proportion, if one considers how Californians are crazy about their cars... I simply cannot wait what the Chinese version will be....
__________
(*) Boxter 0-62 in 5.7 seconds
of course there are other high performance cars that will do better than that... but we are taking mass markets, so we need to compromise -ggg
As for BMW...
They purchased the great brand "Mini" from British Leyland a few years back and they are already doing a great job of marketing it... its hot version the "Mini-Cooper S" is a very fun car to drive, and after the benefit of a few years influence of German engineering.... we shall see.
mini.com
want to try your hand at game of speed?....
miniusa.com |
