370Z July sales down again ......
 

370Z sales for July 2009 totaled 890 units. This is down from 924 in June, 1278 in May, and 1561 in April.

Hmmmm, guess I should have waited to buy mine. Look like deals are gonna start hitting the shelves real soon.

Nissan has sold over 9,000 z this year, more z sold than the g37 coupe. And an 11.9% sales increase from same time last year, 22.3% increase for the year.

i guess everyone is waiting for the 2010 model

11.9 % increase over the 350Z sales from 2008 with a new model is not great.

Again, I think it has a lot more to do with a limited supply of cars out there. Right now it is proving very difficult for people to find a car in the colors and options they want.

I was speaking to a friend of mine that owns a few dealerships. We were talking about how the cash for clunkers program is really helping business.

We spoke about the Z and he said the market for the Z is so soft at this time.

He pulled up Manheim reports showing that fully loaded Z (touring, sport, nav) were going for between $28k - $31k. These cars had less than 100 miles on the clock.

I was surprised. Depreciation is pretty steep when the market for sports cars is soft.

I believe Nissan said they were only making 10,000 cars for the US this year, so sales are going to drop now that it is hard for people to find the car they want.

Obviously, the big focus in this artificially bad economy is not on 2 seat sport cars. Cash for clunkers, a terrible program IMO, is focusing on small, fuel efficient cars. Thats the preachy word being put out, small car, fuel efficient, green.

With these types of attitudes prevalent, the Z is not winning over many new customers, perhaps a few but most people are still a bit shaky about buying a $30-$40K 2 seater with so-so mileage. goes against everything they are being bombarded with on TV, radio, etc. Many people are still a little nervous about gas prices too, don't want to get stuck in the wrong car with $5 gas.

For a company like Nissan they had to at least kind of suspect this. They lowered production dramatically and did it quickly. Economic conditions probably changed dramatically between development and production of this car. I'm glad they moved forward with it anyway. Overall I bet Nissan sees it as a reflection of the economic times we are in and not an indictment on the Z itself.

Smart analysis "Tiger". The "Cash For Clunkers" campaign is definitely a factor working against the Z. I don't think 2010 Z sales will rebound either, as the first year model excitement will have passed, and historically, unless dramatic new features are added to a model, a sales increase is not likely.

seems like a good thing to me. If 370Z are more scarce wouldn't that make them hold their value longer in the long run?

Well hopefully not only that but it would be great not to see one everywhere you look. The 350z is freaking everywhere and honestly I think it takes away from the appeal when you see it all the time. Aside from at the dealer I've yet to see a single 370z here in Vegas aside from mine.

I really don't think Nissan expected miracles from the Z in this economy, but their reaction to the dissapointing sales will probably be to just let the car gradually dissappear, with few improvements, like the Honda S2000.

Uhm, you think the S2000 is being allowed to disappear? Honda makes roughly 9k S2000s per year for sale in the US, and they have continued to do so for over 10 years now. Changes have been made in both performance (most notably the engine/redline change) and style (a little more subtle). I guess I fail to see how continuing to output the same # of vehicles per year for over a decade can be considered letting it disappear. Maybe people don't pay as close of attention to it as when it was first produced, but that's hardly Honda's fault.

I believe 2009 is the last year for the S2000........