Using the information below and if you were the owner of a car manufacturing company. What direction would you choose for your new 2 seat sports coupe?
2015 US car sales:
Nissan 370Z - 6,529
FRS - 9,314
MX5 Miata - 7,153 (1,000+ a month for last 4 months, probably due to new design, sales 300 or under prior months)
Nissan Juke - 23,266
Porsche Cayman - 3,064
Corvette - 28,924
If you choose to compete in the inexpensive, small/light, lower powered segment. The 8 year old 370Z is already doing a decent job against the FRS & Miata.
Notice the Juke sales basically equals 370Z, FRS & Miata combined. Nissan may have cancelled the IDX because it feared that this market was too small for another car and/or it would have just taken it's own sales away from the Juke.
I'd opt for the V6TT 400 or higher hp Z and try to keep the price point and weight as close to the current Z as possible. As I mentioned earlier, you'd still at the very least retain your existing sales. Plus you'll steal some from the other small/light competitors and this gives you a real shot of taking a chunk sales from the largest seller in the 2 seat category, the Corvette. Whether you're a big fan of it or not, horsepower does not hamper car sales one bit.
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