scooter

[qcbaker]

We'll just have to agree to disagree about the Scion thing. I can see there's no changing your mind here lol.

I think this is related to the Buell Blast thing. Basically Buell didn't like beginners buying Buells, and Harley-Davidson didn't like anyone buying sport bikes. So the Blast was killed because they didn't want Buell to become associated with beginner motorcycles, and Harley killed Buell because they didn't want to participate in that market segment which is seen as competing with cruisers rather than expanding their audience.

Agree completely.

My point is Ducati created a whole new BRAND for that style of motorcycle in order to avoid the brand association of Ducati = $8K scramblers in the mind of buyers. Kind of like Yamaha and "Bolt". Or Toyota and Lexus.

Ahh, I get you.

Man. Must be a strange market there. A Buell Blast around here is a $1200 bike if it's solid and usable, and I see them all the time for $500-800. If one was listed at $1850 then it'd be on Craigslist for months until someone finally talked them down to below $1500, even if it was dead mint.

And GS500s that are complete, clean and working will get $2K here no matter the year model. Same for EX500s.

Huh, I had no idea Blasts were so cheap elsewhere. All the ones I've seen up here (Central PA) are $1500+ for a running one in good condition, less for ones that need work. I checked KBB before I made any sort of offer to be sure I was getting a fair deal.

GS500s and EX500s seem to be similarly priced to your area though... Maybe Texas just hates Buell? lol

[Watcher]

Blasts in good condition usually go between $1200-1500 out here.
Usually follows GS500 pricing... ish...

[rscottlow]

FWIW, in my BBA program we studied Toyota relatively extensively, and the Scion brand was definitely marketed towards the 18-20something market in an effort to establish brand loyalty. They pulled me in at 18...I bought a brand new xB. Drove it off the lot for under 18 grand, and it was everything I wanted. Cheap, quirky, fun, fuel efficient (cheap). But I didn't stick around as a customer...my last vehicle purchase (for my wife/primary family vehicle) was a Mazda CX-5. I liked the Scion, but it just didn't sell me on the brand loyalty. I'm not sure why they decided to nix the brand, but I can also attest that while driving the xB, I noticed most other people driving them were middle-aged women. Maybe they just weren't able to market to their target young customers as effectively as they had intended. Anyway, just my two cents on that random side topic 😂


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[mr72]

FWIW, in my BBA program we studied Toyota relatively extensively, and the Scion brand was definitely marketed towards the 18-20something market in an effort to establish brand loyalty. ...
I can also attest that while driving the xB, I noticed most other people driving them were middle-aged women. Maybe they just weren't able to market to their target young customers as effectively as they had intended.

Yes that is exactly the point I was trying to make. Regardless of how Toyota intended to market the Scion, a completely different demographic bought them than they had intended due to low cost, Toyota's reputation for reliability and the general utility of them. A Scion was viewed as Toyota quality for less money. The xB in particular also had an extra element of utility .. a legitimate 4-door with a giant hatchback area that got 40mpg for under $20K? Dream car for grandmas and retired dog owners.

It's just a really challenging demographic to meet for a company like Toyota that needs to leverage economies of scale that feed a more expensive bulk car market. And Toyota doesn't have a business model that can sustain offering a model of car that sells in the low 10Ks per year like some other companies can (Mazda, for example).

It's an interesting side topic and I think it fits the odds n ends forum quite well

[rscottlow]

Yes that is exactly the point I was trying to make. Regardless of how Toyota intended to market the Scion, a completely different demographic bought them than they had intended due to low cost, Toyota's reputation for reliability and the general utility of them. A Scion was viewed as Toyota quality for less money. The xB in particular also had an extra element of utility .. a legitimate 4-door with a giant hatchback area that got 40mpg for under $20K? Dream car for grandmas and retired dog owners.

It's just a really challenging demographic to meet for a company like Toyota that needs to leverage economies of scale that feed a more expensive bulk car market. And Toyota doesn't have a business model that can sustain offering a model of car that sells in the low 10Ks per year like some other companies can (Mazda, for example).

It's an interesting side topic and I think it fits the odds n ends forum quite well

It's interesting really...I saw the FR-S as a big competitor for the Miata. I know Toyota and Subaru are still making that car, but I just wonder how long that will last. From everything I've read and heard, it's a fun little car. Underpowered, RWD, and fun to drive, just like the Miata. If I didn't have two little kids, I'd have one in the driveway lol.

[mr72]

It's interesting really...I saw the FR-S as a big competitor for the Miata.

Same as most people who don't really understand the Miata did. BTW I owned a Miata for 15 years and this is a topic near and dear to my heart. I miss that car a lot.

I know Toyota and Subaru are still making that car, but I just wonder how long that will last. From everything I've read and heard, it's a fun little car. Underpowered, RWD, and fun to drive, just like the Miata. If I didn't have two little kids, I'd have one in the driveway lol.

Well, a Miata is hardly underpowered, and I really did get tired of that cliché. Just because Americans don't understand how to rev an engine past 4,000 rpm doesn't mean a sports car is underpowered. And just because people don't understand how to take a corner does not make a lightweight car slow. My 2000 Miata would do 0-60 in a shade over 6 seconds with only a very mildly warmed over engine (headers and free-flowing exhaust, open intake, +0.5points compression ratio). But anyway, that's not the point. I have no idea if the FR-S/BR-Z is underpowered, but it might be considering the weight of the car. They are 400-500lb heavier than a current Miata... that's nearly a 25% weight increase. That's similar to the weight difference between a FR-S and a Mustang. If you wouldn't call a Mustang lightweight in the same way that a FR-S is, then a FR-S is not really lightweight in the same way as a Miata.

Anyway, I think the FR-S/BR-Z really are without category competitors in the market right now. They are a niche-defining product. Used to be there were many cars in this niche, but not any more. A BR-Z has a lot more in common with a 90s 300ZX or RX-7, or even the recent RX-8, and even a non-turbo Supra, than it does with anything else in the current US market. IMHO! I guess that makes it kind of retro.

And BTW when I bought my Miata, brand new, my kids were 3 and 6. We never once owned a mini-van. You can make a sports car work with little kids, if you really want to. Both of my daughters learned to drive in my Miata.

Anyway... from what I can tell it looks like they are selling 40K-60K BRZ+FRS each year. That's over double the most Mazda EVER sold of Miatas in one year, and there were many years that Mazda sold only 4-5K units TOTAL. And on average, Mazda sold about 2x as many Miatas as Porsche did Boxsters. This is the point here. Toyota has not tooled their business such that it can tolerate sub-100K annual sales numbers for any car while many other automakers would be ecstatic with the sales numbers Scion gets. Scion as a brand sold between about 45K and 200K cars each year (all models combined), which is about 1/3 on average the total sales of Mazda, and Mazda had far more models to spread that around. Nobody thinks Mazda is a failing automaker or should be shut down. They just have a completely different business model. They intentionally set out to brand the company as making a cars that "few people love" rather than cars that "many people like", and they scaled their business to tolerate the "few" people buying their cars and still succeed.

Americans just don't buy lightweight cars anymore. Not enough cup holders or power outlets. And it's a shrinking number of drivers who can even drive a manual transmission car anymore, and among those who can, many are getting old and just don't want a rough-riding, loud, amenity-free Japanese $30K sports car; they are old/affluent enough to buy a Porsche or BMW, or they don't drive their toy car daily so they get a classic car like a 240Z or an 80s 911 instead. But the FR-S is really the worst kind of Scion brand mismatch. Millennials, who are supposedly targeted as Scion buyers, generally can't drive a stick shift car and have no appreciation for sports cars of any flavor, and those outside the target demo can afford something else. So most FR-S buyers wind up being older than the target demo, folks looking for a cheaper fun car that they can modify or take to the racetrack. One that a blown transmission or broken lower control arm won't wind up costing many-$K in repairs. And Toyota doesn't want to market a car that's just the poor-man's Cayman... they'd rather brand it Toyota or Lexus, put turbos on it and heated leather seats and make it $50-60K and sell it to the same Cayman cross-shoppers for 2-3x the profit. But to be worth it they'd have to sell >100K/year of them, and they already two cars in that segment (Lexus RC and RC-F).

[rscottlow]

I see what you're getting at. I suppose my comparison was based more so on it being an inexpensive, fun little car, rather than on specs. My little brother has three Miatas (one that he totaled, and is just a parts car now), and the FR-S was a car I thought of as comparable for cruising with him and maybe taking to the track every now and then. To me, the FR-S is more similar to the Miata in those aspects than an S2000 or a Z4 (and compared to those, I'd still say the Miata is underpowered). I'm not saying Miatas are slow...my brother takes his to the track almost weekly during the summer, and runs better times than a lot of guys in much more powerful cars.

As far as a little car for me goes...it just doesn't really fit my lifestyle. I'd love to have one for fun, but I'd have a hard time making it work for a daily. My wife drives a CX-5, and that's our primary family vehicle (for the record, it's a stick shift!). Both of my kids are still in car seats, and there's really no way to make that work with an FR-S. I pick up the kids from daycare three days a week, so I have to be able to transport them in my vehicle. Plus, we're likely buying a travel trailer within the next year or so, which makes a truck my only practical option. So the GS is my "fun" vehicle, at least until the kids are a little older.


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[qcbaker]

Not to revert subjects, but I took the Blast out for a short little ride last night. My gf is away on a family trip and I didn't want her bike to sit too long without some degree of attention. Bike hesitated a little bit starting (it was cold, and the bike had been sitting since the day I brought it home) but it did start. So thankfully, the battery seems to be in decent shape. After riding around for like 20 minutes to warm it up, I pulled the bike back into my dad's driveway and parked it. We then just kinda hung out and talked about bikes a bit while it cooled down. After it cooled enough that I wasn't scared I would severely burn myself, I wanted to inspect the headers more thoroughly because of Watcher's comment about the rust. I was pretty confident in my initial "they look a little rusty, but it isn't bad" assessment, but I wanted to be sure. Indeed, they look worse in the picture than they actually are. They're a weird combination of very lightly rusted but pretty dirty, so in well lit pics they look badly rusted, but they aren't bad. So the rust isn't much more than a cosmetic concern right now. I'll probably give the bike a thorough cleaning at some point and re-evaluate if I should sand all the paint off and re-spray the exhaust with high-temp stuff.

As for the topic at hand: Like I said before, my daily driver is my Corolla, and my fun vehicle is my GS. However, I'm very close (only a couple hundred dollars) to having the Corolla paid off. Once that happens, I'm gonna start saving for a newer car. My plan is to save for about a year, then use that + my corolla as a trade-in as a decent down payment on a newer WRX. The WRX is sporty enough to be fun to drive, but practical enough to be a daily driver (or at least I've convinced myself of that lol).

[mr72]

S2000 or a Z4 (and compared to those, I'd still say the Miata is underpowered).

Only if the power of a car is an isolated thing unrelated to the dimensions (size, weight) of the car...

I mean, a Z4 is a thousand pounds heavier than a Miata, and an S2000 is 500 lb heavier. Those cars need more power and more of everything than a Miata simply because of the size and weight.

I can't remember who said it, but the axiom is true: adding horsepower makes a car faster in a straight line, reducing weight makes a car faster everywhere.

[emanuel_v19]

I always thought girls on scooters were cuter than on a motorcycle. Anyway, where are you located? I am selling 2 at the moment

[mr72]

I'm near Austin, TX. And I think I'm out of the market for a scooter until at least spring of next year.

[yamahonkawazuki]

I think the whole Harley lifestyle sans performance is 100% true.  To the point where their ECMs are programmed to misfire to keep that HD sound.
To the point they REMOVED balancing shafts from upcoming engine designs because customers complained it was too smooth.
Why does my XB12SS have essentially the same engine as a Harley Sportster but it's smoother, makes about 30 more horses, and has about twice the torque?
Why did it take them this damn long to hop on the bandwagon and make a 750/500cc bike to fit the learner crowd (but they're still $8000 bikes)?
It IS a lifestyle.
With the resurgence of Indian and Victory stealing customers they need to up their game if they want to stay competitive.  Victory is making nicer machines for the same money, and Indian is a classic name and iconic style reborn and is taking many HD riders over.  It's probably the only reason we saw small bikes from HD.  Get them started young and keep them...

And if you need ANY proof that it was HD that killed off Buell, Buell had already developed the Rotax 1125 engine and was moving away from HD supply lines when they got hung, despite claims from HD that Buell wouldn't have been able to be independent because of how reliant they were on HD for parts, Buell was dissolved only 2 years after HD purchased all the assets (2 years is a short time to decide it's a financial draw rather than a profit.  What, they couldn't see the recession this whole time they were still purchasing the company?  How short-sighted are they?  I hope the economic projections guy also got fired), and HD also owned MVAgusta at the time and decided to SELL them.

HD didn't even try to sell Buell and instead just destroyed them, they barely marketed Buell while owning them, they basically thought Buells were toy bikes and that when the riders "grew up" they'd get a Harley anyway, so why would they waste the money on all these trade-ins?

HD killed Buell.  Bottom line.

the heads on your xb12ss are of the higher compression variety. you can pretty much bolt them onto a 1200cc sportie and get the same results.
Aaron