Quote:
Originally Posted by NJGOAT
Well, I'm not entirely sure about that. Being first out the gate certainly helped sales on the FRS/BRZ, especially the FRS which is pretty much singlehandedly responsible for rescuing Scion from the duldrums. Sales are hot enough that everyone took notice, but the issue is and always has been the cost of developing a small RWD platform. Rumor on the street is that the FRS/BRZ is not profitable. Toyota doesn't really care as the cars job is to serve as a "halo" for Scion with a trickledown effect on sales of the other models and it's working. Subaru is having a tougher time with the BRZ do to the FRS undercutting the price and the fact that the Subaru faithful either love it or hate it, more hate than love from what I've heard from a buddy at Subaru HQ. No one else jumped in feet first, because they have far less to gain from spending all that development money on a new chassis.
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RWD originally fell out of favor for compact or medium cars for packaging reasons. The FWD transaxle and transverse-mounted engine is a much more efficient way to arrange a car's powertrain in a smaller car while also freeing up some passenger interior space.
Nowadays, inexpensive FWD compact, subcompact, and medium sized cars aren't exactly profitable at their price margins, but they make enough money for automakers partly because their platforms are designed to be shared between different models, from sedans, hatchbacks, wagons, to even small SUVs and crossovers.
So ultimately, it's not so much the developmental costs of designing a new chassis, but how many cars you can put this new chassis in.
Unfortunately, the sporty RWD platform that underlies the GT86 twins are so far used in just one car - the GT86. Given how much it cost to research and develop the chassis and engine of the GT86, and the car's smallish sales figures, it's no surprise that the car isn't profitable....yet. Toyota and Subaru need to not just sell more of the GT86 twins, but also produce variants of the GT86 (I've read that a GT86 sedan is on the horizon) as well as other models based on this RWD platform. Given how little of the car market consists of inexpensive RWD cars, and the extremely limited variety of car types that use inexpensive RWD platforms (mostly sports cars like the GT86 twins, the MX-5 Miata, the Mustang, the Genesis coupe...that seems to be it), it seems like Toyota and Subaru would have to invent some new car types and develop them for this platform if they ever hope to make it profitable.
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