Flaw in NSX marketing/pricing

[want_v8]

Now MD-X is a great SUV yet hardly a good example of Acura's
Luxury/sport/prestige. For luxury brand success in America it would be impossible to ignore the Lexus luxury and its brand royal community.
It's not the service, which no longer available, of picking up and
dropping off your LS400 for $25.00 oil change (it was that cheap)
including detailing your car, Godiva chocolate, and unlimited cups of gourmet coffee. Those were just an icing on a cake. Speaking of cake (in this case Cars) Lexus knows what ultimate luxury is all about. It is Not just cushy rides from Well damped struts, unlike some Honda doublewishbone suspensions with backbone breaking ride quality, and Tomb-quiet insulation it's called the total and complete luxury tayloring to human comfort in all circumstances. For example MDX and TL uses that same A/C compressors as Civics and Accords, which are adequate, but hardly effective in 115 degree ambient temperature. Why go thru all that excessive engineering? Again Total luxury. Honda/Acura wants to mimic the Lexus luxury and BMW performance. That's why Acura scores A- and B+ on all catagories, but never A++ in
one. Jack of all trades master of none. The results of total luxury pay-out is 378,000 RX300 sales in 2002 although it corners and accelerate slower than do-it-all MDX.
Can anyone tell me how many MDX's left the showroom?

 

[Ojas]

...378,000 RX300 sales in 2002...

378,000/yr? Do you mean 37,800/yr?

 

[kgb_agent]

378,000/yr? Do you mean 37,800/yr?

HAHA 378,000 must be some sort of record!

 

[GotBarbecue]

Everyone here wrote very good points. The biggest flaw I see with the Honda/Acura brand, that affects the NSX to the mainstream consumer is, that the two brands are interchangable.

Yes, Lexus is Toyota. No one in coporate Lexus located in Torrance, CA has a @lexus.com email address; it is all @toyota.com email. However, the marketing and advertising is so successful, mainstream consumers do not know the difference nor care the Lexus is a Toyota.

Let me clarify what I mean by "mainstream consumer". Current mainstream consumers do not get on bulletin boards talking about cars. We, members of NSXPrime, know all the in's and out's of cars. We can rattle of horsepower and wheel horsepower numbers on the fly. Many of us have done market research over the last few years to study trends, attitude change, etc. Members of NSXPrime bought the NSX because the instant they saw it, they wanted it. No advertising nor marketing advertisements can sway them to buy a Z06 or a Viper.

Unfortunately, Honda's marketing is quite skewed. The instant someone brings up Acura, one thinks about Honda. It is quite hard to envision driving a $80,000 car and bringing it into a dealership for service where they are used to servicing $20,000 cars.

I agree with people's point about the NSX being the pedigree of Honda/Acura. It is like saying why does Mercedes need to make a twin turbo SL 500? They get bragging rights because they successfully made one.

Lexus never intends to compete in the performance category, unfortunately. Lexus wantst to make "environmentally-minded" vehicles. That is why the next generation GS and IS are AWD. It seems Lexus is capping at 300 horsepower. The 2004 LS will just be a reskin.

Unfortunately, Lexus is in a limbo at this moment. I am not sure on what direction they are taking. They are starting new peformance driving schools, yet the cars marketing is not geared toward that direction.

As for performance, the usual swap is a 2JZ-GTE into a SC300.

Many Lexus owners do not care about going fast, but they view the car as a tool that gets them from point A to point B.

Ok, I'm sorry for all the rambling.

 

[nsxtasy]

The results of total luxury pay-out is 378,000 RX300 sales in 2002 although it corners and accelerate slower than do-it-all MDX.
Can anyone tell me how many MDX's left the showroom?

Last year, Acura sold 52,955 MD-Xs in the U.S. And that was with 3-4 month waiting lists at most dealers.

The very similar Honda Pilot sold about the same number.

Incidentally, 52,955 is greater than 37,800 but less than 378,000.

 

[Silver F16]

NSXTASY,

MDX was best in class only in the first year introduction. Just check out any magazine today about SUV comparsions.

BTW, according to the latest issue of Automobile Mag, Lexus sold 97,000 RX300 in 2002, almost double that of the MDX. That volume speaks for itself.

 

[mlambert890]

Well, figures depend on how you interpret them. RX300 sales were actually down for 2002 and MDX sales were actually up. Overall Toyota truck sales were down 7% and overall Honda truck sales were up 33%. Overall sales for Honda as a whole were up 3.3%. Toyota, overall, was down as a whole.