All Toyota seems to be interested in offering is Trucks, midsize 4-door sedans, and the Prius. Corolla FX-16? No. Corolla hatchback/wagon? No. Celica GT? No.
How about a performance car? I don't mean a $40,000 luxury 2-seater..I mean a practical daily driver for the average person with some fun built in. I don't see anything like that from Toyota.
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Er, guys, it's called being modest. Who here really believes Toyota is tanking? Almost every automaker is down by at least 27% in sales this year. Toyota is still one of the strongest, if not the strongest car maker in the world. Just because this guy, in a very Japanese fashion, makes a humble statement, everyone thinks the sky is falling down?
As an American I don't want what Americans want, which is oversized, heavy chasis, SPINNAZ, numb handling, manumatic, 50 cup holders, and plastic over my engine bay.
No one in the US wanted exciting cars so automakers around the planet had to cater to that. Plus new models introduced means new liabilities and we are all to eager to sue the fuck out of companies. I know this is a rant BUT there is a reason why Europe, Asia and Australia get cool cars from GM, Ford, Honda, Toyota, etc.
People all over the auto blogs are whining about how Toyota stopped building fun cars. Well, it seems in part that Toyota stopped building them because no-one was buying them. The '93+ Supra priced itself out of the market. Maybe it should have been badged a Lexus and given a new name. The 2nd and 3rd generation MR2s faded away because of lack of sales. You think the Celica would have died had people bought them in decent numbers? Sporty Corolla coupes and hatches? No-one cared since the late '80s, so they went bye-bye.
Yeah, Toyota is nothing more than an appliance brand in the US - the Kenmore of the automotive world. We are to blame for that as much as Toyota.
What he's really doing is telling the Japanese government, and it's corporate subsidiaries, to get off the stick and manipulate the exchange rate back to where it was. I don't blame him, though. It's his job to make Toyota profitable, and that's one way to help do it.
Well, blaming the Japanese for corporate subsidies is fairy hypocritical when the US has just come out of a trillion dollar bank bailout.
Not to mention the US automotive industry has had the largest influx of government help and meddling in automotive history. 60% of GM is owned by the US government, and the rest is owned by the UAW and the Canadian government.
@Scaramanga: The US is now just catching up to what the rest of the industrialized world has been doing (albeit in varying levels of discreetness) for a long, long time.
Your point is valid in that it points out the extremes our gov't has seen fit to go to to "preserve" some semblance of certain national corporations. The Japanese would never have let it get that far, and have certainly benefited, until very recently, from a very open marketplace that is the United States. (and the Koreans too)
Having formerly worked for a Japanese car company, I saw this first hand.
Edited by evoCS-Hench-Minion to the stars at 10/02/09 6:30 PM
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Edited by that ain't the way to have fun, son at 10/02/09 10:50 AM
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10/02/09
10/02/09
How about a performance car? I don't mean a $40,000 luxury 2-seater..I mean a practical daily driver for the average person with some fun built in. I don't see anything like that from Toyota.
10/02/09
10/02/09
10/02/09
No one in the US wanted exciting cars so automakers around the planet had to cater to that. Plus new models introduced means new liabilities and we are all to eager to sue the fuck out of companies. I know this is a rant BUT there is a reason why Europe, Asia and Australia get cool cars from GM, Ford, Honda, Toyota, etc.
10/02/09
I blame the American consumer. Delenda Cartago.
10/02/09
10/02/09
Yeah, Toyota is nothing more than an appliance brand in the US - the Kenmore of the automotive world. We are to blame for that as much as Toyota.
10/02/09
10/02/09
@Steve_in_NC:
10/03/09
10/02/09
I found this in a Thesaurus under the heading "Toyota":
acupunctuation, acupuncture, arid, bore, boresome, broach, dead, drab, dreary, drill hole, drudging, dry, dull, empiercement,exhausting, fatiguing, fixing, flat, goring, gray, humdrum,impalement, irksome, lancing, long-drawn-out, monotonous,penetration, perforation, piercing, pricking, prolix, punching,puncturing, repetitious, repetitive, same, samely,skewering, soporific, stale, stupefyingly boring, stuporific, tedious, terebration, tired, tiresome, tiring, transfixation,transfixion, transforation, trepanning, trephining, unending,unexciting, uninteresting, unrelieved, weariful, wearing,wearisome, wearying, wordy, yawny
10/02/09
10/02/09
10/02/09
10/02/09
10/02/09
Well, blaming the Japanese for corporate subsidies is fairy hypocritical when the US has just come out of a trillion dollar bank bailout.
Not to mention the US automotive industry has had the largest influx of government help and meddling in automotive history. 60% of GM is owned by the US government, and the rest is owned by the UAW and the Canadian government.
10/02/09
Your point is valid in that it points out the extremes our gov't has seen fit to go to to "preserve" some semblance of certain national corporations. The Japanese would never have let it get that far, and have certainly benefited, until very recently, from a very open marketplace that is the United States. (and the Koreans too)
Having formerly worked for a Japanese car company, I saw this first hand.
10/02/09
10/02/09
10/02/09
@komododave: Fraulein approved!
10/03/09
10/02/09
Go fish.