The sun is shining into the shrouded windows here at TTAC HQ, seriously tempting me away from the computer for the first time since Oregon’s long, grey winter set in. In celebration of the fine weather and the impending weekend, we continue our March sales coverage by taking a look at the cars we call “weekend toys.” There’s no real rhyme or reason to this “segment,” as it spans a variety of sizes and price points. So rather than seeing this as a segment of directly-competing models, just think of it as an update on the world of (relatively) irrational vehicle purchases. The chart above represents the most popular vehicles that we think qualify as sufficiently irrational… hit the jump for an extended chart, including the higher-priced, lower-volume models.
Impressive numbers for the BMW Mini, which I’ve always thought is an intriguing, if super-expensive, choice. Don’t think I could keep my paws off the amazing options list, and by the time you’re through that you’re talking about a prohibitively expensive vehicle :(.
I would have thought that at half the price of the SL, the SLK would sell a lot more units than the SL, but I guess Mercedes buyers want the real thing instead of the imitation …
D
You forgot the BMW Z4
Are CR-Z sales in line with what Honda was excepting?
Does Mini provide a breakdown between the Clubman, Countryman, and the Mini-with-no-name? I know this isn’t The Truth About Minis, but it would be interesting to see how the new model is doing.
Sales Mar. / YTD
Cooper /S hardtop 3043; 6476
Cooper /S conv. 537; 1018
Cooper/ S Clubman 778; 1546
sub-total: 4358; 9040
Actually, a V6 Mustang mustang is a little *too* rational of a vehicle for its segment.
I’m not sure about putting the MINI Cooper into this category. I think there was a lot of rationale put into my decision to buy one.
The numbers lump it right up there between the Nissan Cube and Hyundai Accent in the subcompact category.
Not bad.
No Genesis coupe?
I don’t think Hyundai splits the sales of the coupe out from the sedan. And the latter certainly doesn’t fit in the category.
I would expect that weekend toys would be more sold when the weather is sunny so shouldn’t the numbers of cars sold not be year round.
ps. Why does it show on every graph year to date sold and not sold since april 2010?
I think the new 2012 Beetle will likely jump up in these standings rather quickly, not just because it will be novel, but because it will probably appeal to more men than the ‘New Beetle’ did.
Girlie men? The ones that can’t afford an EOS? Strange how cars take on a certain gender.
As PT Barnum always said, there are 8,964 balding dentists born every minute.
(Some) men want flashy…
I’m surprised that the Camaro is managing to lead the Mustang in sales despite the new Mustang engines. Pretty much every review rates the Mustang over the Camaro, and I generally get the sales when people are cross shopping them. Who is buying all of these Camaros?
don1967?
I honestly don’t understand it, myself. It’s an interesting looking car in some ways, but as others here have pointed out, it’s basically a pillbox on wheels.
The Camaro looks like nothing else on the road, and if someone absolutely loves the exterior styling of the Camaro (or Challenger) then they won’t be buying a Mustang.
The Mustang is attractive, but I think very few people fall in love with it at first sight.
Pretty much what ajla said – the Camaro has distinctive styling.
The fact that everything else about the vehicle is executed worse than the Mustang doesn’t really come into play when people are shopping to keep up with the Joneses.
I’m driving a rental 2012 Mustang for the weekend and so far it’s okay but definitely not the end all, be all. The V6 has some punch but the interior feels awkward, the steering column doesn’t telescope and this rental grade car has a dungeon of an interior. I’ll spend more time in it tomorrow but as of right now I don’t know what the big deal is.
And they have now gone with EPS power steering. In this pony car segment, perhaps the Challenger or a Hyundai Coupe make more sense. Does the steering wheel telescope on the Hyundai Coupe? Should wait for the extra HP to come with the turbo i4 and V6 for next model year. The Camaro is just fat, hard to see out of, and like I said, the Hyudai seems like a better deal. Great warranty, and fine looks, and seems very solid.
You know, when the pre-refreshed Mustang first came out, I liked it but it didn’t have the humped shoulder over the rear wheels – “Coke bottle” style. Now for the refresh with the style updates, there are too many odd angles across the back end and front. While I like the “Coke bottle” hump, it turns out I like the linear style of the previous version, it’s just so much cleaner!
Perhaps that’s why the Camaro outsells it – right now…
I feel the Camaro is grossly over-styled as well, but it seems to appeal to enough people to make the difference. The Challenger is the best looking of the bunch, though.
Fiat didn’t bother upgrading the Challenger interior, though, did they?
And I do agree that the Camaro sells on the (exterior) looks more than anything else.
The styling of the Camaro still doesn’t do it for me, it just seems half baked and overdone, especially the odd brake lights floating in the middle of nowhere.
I do love the looks of the Challenger though, and if I were to buy one of the three based purely on looks, it would be the Challenger.
I think I agree with Zackman, the 2005 Mustang was such a nice design that the refresh had a hard act to follow. To me, Ford tried to hard with the redesign. i haven’t driven a Camaro yet so I don’t have anything to compare to, but the V6/Auto I’m driving this weekend has its strong points (the engine) about some things are off. Like the six-speed automatic that seemingly takes forever to find the right gear and some honest to goodness clunkiness in the driveline. Definitely not my cup of tea.
I see way more Camaros around here, especially over the last 3 months, including a lot of aftermarket modded ones. A co-worker has some sort of limited edition SS. It’s dark grey with orange on the hood, and has a Hurst badge on the back end. Kind of blah, IMO. Personally, I do like the looks of the Mustang a lot better than the Camaro, and if I had to buy one of them, I would take the Mustang, even though I’ve been a 3 time F-Body owner, and have never even thought of buying a Ford in my life. But I bought a Challenger R/T instead, easily the best looking of the three.
I’m more surprised that Ford has a 116 day inventory of the Mustang and is stopping production for all of next week due to over supply.
I’ve read grumblings among enthusiasts about manual tranny problems, but it doesn’t sound THAT wide spread. It sure isn’t the product or the reviews – but for some reason the Mustang is not selling anywhere near where Ford had hoped.
(116 day inventory was reported to LLN earlier this week)
Holden –
I’m thinking some of the oversupply might be due to the brutal winter the northern states experience this year. A Mustang isn’t exactly the type of car that you think about when there is a lot of snow on the roads. Spring and Summer usually bring higher sales rates to these kinds of cars, but the rising gas prices may also be making people wonder about buying a V8 car.
The V6 Mustang gets great mileage, and still offers very good performance, but decades of ‘secretary special’ V6 Mustangs have tainted the image. I try to push the V6 often, as the lower cost and better fuel economy make it fit the needs of a lot of customers more than the GT, but a lot of people still have prejudices against the V6 Mustang.
Well, many of the B&B are eating crow right about now as the Camaro and Challenger are doing pretty damn well for cars that were blasted as being flashes in the retro pan…
golden2husky….I was just getting ready to submit the same comment.
My heart and{and pension check} is with the Camaro. However, as a couple in thier fifties, we find the Mustang more user friendly.
The Honda, Scion and Beetle are weekend toy’s?
If one of these is a weekend toy for someone I’d hate to see what they drive during the week.
Add to that the Eos and the Mini. I don’t see any of these as “weekend toys”.
I have a 2011 Mustang and a 2001 Miata. Trust me, both were entirely rational choices.
Notice any difference in the power steering of the new Mustang? They claim to have gotten it right, as EPS in a best case scenario may yield.
I too am quite surprised the Mustang numbers are so far behind the Camaro. I would have thought the new engines would have had the Mustang outselling the Camaro. I know the Flat Rock assembly plant which builds Mustangs and Mazda 6’s was shut down recently for at least a week because of lack of demand. Does GM have some super deals on Camaros and Ford doesn’t on Mustangs? Those sales numbers are very difficult to make any sense out of.
The Mustang made up a lot of ground last month, but the Camaro is still going strong. The Camaro’s big advantage is that it looks newer (if that can be true for any retro design) than the Mustang. The 2010 Mustang refresh looks very much like the 2005 model to anyone other than a die hard Mustang fan.
Also, Camaro’s eight years off the market may have created a bit of pent up demand.
I think you nailed it right there. People who have wanted a Mustang could buy one, whereas Camaro owners who would never own anything else but, have been waiting all this time to get one. Now that the economy is (slowly) starting to pick back up, all that pent up demand is being unleashed.
To me, the Camaro looks less retro, and a lot more bizarre than anything else. I don’t see how they sell many of them at all. It’s hard to ugly up a pony car, but somehow, GM has done a fine job of it, inside and out. It saddens me as a 2 time Camaro and 1 time Firebird owner that the new car is so hideous.
@John Horner I agree that the similarity of the current Mustang with previous years makes the Mustang rather common on the streets, and of course the older ones may not be looking their best right now. The Camaro on the other hand is still rather uncommon(newer) and tends to be noticed more than the herd of Mustangs out there. Pony cars have always been about individualism, and many of the pony car buyers I am quite certain are not looking to be part of a large ubiquitous herd. I doubt if the current Mustang will catch up to the Camaro among the general pony car buyers, although the Mustang showing in March is a bit of a surprise to me. I wonder if the real enthusiasts are the ones holding the Mustang numbers close.
If the 50th Anniversary Mustang is as much of a dramatic upgrade as it needs to be, the situation between Mustangs and Camaros may become reversed.
A guy who lives in my neighborhood has both a late model Camaro and a late model Mustang, and alternately trades them in for new ones every couple of years. I don’t know if he buys or leases but he doesn’t drive them very often. He even had a metal building erected on his property to house these cars and his classic-seventies Corvette. Most of the time he slithers by in his old, old old, all-beat-to-hell, F-100 pickup on the way to Home Depot or Lowe’s. His wife never drives the pony cars but continues to cruise along in her late-eighties Camry. So EN is right, there is no rhyme or reason for this segment, other than people just want to have them to be seen in them. But there is something odd about seeing a seventy-something guy taking a new pony car out for a spin, just because he can. No jealousy or envy on my part because I do not have a sports car or pony car body. I’m built for comfort, not for speed.
I don’t see the Mazda RX-8 on there, unless it (quite plausibly) sold less than the LF-A’s 8.
On the other hand, I drive my RX-8 every day and have used it to haul everything from my goalie equipment to manure.
I’m a bit surprised to see the Corvette outselling the Miata (sorry, it will always be Miata to me, not MX-5) 2:1. I always had the impression the Miata was the accessible weekend/fun drop top for the masses due to its low (relative) cost of entry, easy maintenance, decent fuel economy, etc.
Any stats on the Z4?
The current MX-5 is near the end of its production cycle (it’s been out since 2006) and it’s due for a refresh. Given that it sells 15-20k units per year in the US historically, the sales numbers aren’t that bad.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazda_MX-5#Production_numbers_and_details
Looking around my area I have seen most of these ‘weekend toys’ but they’re all doing duty as someone’s main ride or daily personal transportation. The Camaro, Mustang and Mini are indeed over-represented in my area as they hurtle to and from work during the daily commute.
Yeah I pulled up behind a fairly new Miata at a stoplight last night and it had Oklahoma plates on it, given that I live in Gallup, NM I don’t think it was a weekend toy. Working at “central office” the high school next door has at least one teacher with a Miata that is his daily driver.
Here in southern NM we don’t see the numbers that you do up there along I-40 but the variety of foreign brands is greater in my area, especially those brought in by the very large German AF population that this area houses for their training facility at the nearby Air Base. Still, many German families choose to either bring a car with them from Germany when they are assigned here or buy a brand new foreign-brand car while here and in many cases, take it back home with them. I guess the importation guidelines are a lot less restrictive for Germany because every German seems to be taking back at least one car bought in America and at least one motorcycle bought in America. My guess would be that those brands/models are just not available in Germany, at any price, especially Harley and Victory. And so it is that the foreign-brand dealerships in Las Cruces and El Paso, TX do very well in terms of tax-free sales to Germans here, and the very large German Army community art Ft Bliss, TX. It is like our US Status of Forces agreement in reverse that we enjoyed for more than 65 years when our American military was stationed overseas. And that can certainly account for the very large number of week-end toys that are used as daily drivers in my area.
in other news, people are still buying Eclipses. lulz!
So rarely seen around here, they are semi-exotic.
I just picked up a leftover 2010 Challenger. Historically I have driven sporty Japanese cars (turbocharged 1990 Miata, two second-gen RX-7s, one first-gen RX-7, an RX-8, and a 2000 and 2007 Civic Si) but I decided that I wanted to get one of the new-age muscle cars before one special interest group or another and gas prices conspired to kill them off.
I find the Challenger’s interior to have a quality feel in most spots. The dashboard is a one-piece soft-touch affair that previewed the 2012 JGC, Charger, and 300. The only part I don’t care for is the steering wheel – however, I don’t think the new one in the 2011s is really an improvement.
If I could change anything, it would be to replace the fake carbon fiber trim with a satin finish faux wood like the original Challenger.
Personally, I’m glad that the Mustang and Camaro are selling at about double the rate – despite the car having been on the market for about 3 years, a Hemi Orange Challenger R/T Classic still gets a lot of positive attention.
I’m looking at swapping the fake carbon for trim painted Hemi Orange to match the car. I want my friend to do it first though, it may be a little too much. I’ve never had a car that gets the attention it does.
Love how the TTAC faithful can’t accept Camaro/Mustang dominance in this segment!
Fortunately, I’m not part of that group! I couldn’t care less about any of the imports as I wouldn’t buy one. For something like this, although I own a 2007 MX5, I say to the Camaro and Mustang: Go, go, go! These two are daily drivers, as opposed to a Miata.
I know a guy who has MX-5 for daily driver, in Boston. He even drives with top down when it’s -10C outside.