Car Niches: Life And Death Among The Auto Giants

Although everyone knows of the ascendancy of Honda and Toyota, and the struggles of the Big 2.5 American car-makers, there are a lot of other brands and makes out there that have annual sales below the 300,000 mark. Flint believes “"hat a car company needs 300,000 sales here to be able to compete and grow." Otherwise, it will have problems.

Some brands have sales below that figure and are doing well, but those are primarily luxury brands such as Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, and Cadillac; or they are sub-brands such as BMW's Mini or Toyota's Scion which do not have independent dealer and sales networks of their own, but rather piggyback on their corporate master's dealers. As such, their financial viability is pretty secure, we think.

Some foreign companies have quit the U.S. market over the years—think Peugeot, or Alfa Romeo, for instance—because they couldn't reach an acceptable level of sales to justify selling in this market. And some of the North American domestic brands have been ditched—think Oldsmobile or Plymouth—because their sales tanked, too.

Here's a list of some other smaller brands, and what they sell:

• Suzuki, writes Flint, sells cars that are "too little and too quirky for Americans," even though they're successful in other parts of the world. The automaker recently started selling a rebadged GM SUV knows as the Suzuki XL-7, produced at a joint-venture plant in Ingersoll, Ontario.
• Buick is one of the struggling domestic lineups; it sold 282,000 units two years ago; 241,000 last year, and this year is projected to only sell 200,000. It currently sells just three models, and will probably look to Chinese-made Buicks for future models (Buick is popular in China).
• Mitsubishi at one time went over the magic 300,000 figure—in 2000 it sold 317,000 vehicles—but may have shot itself in the foot via its financing arm at the time, since it seems it sold its cars to some folks who couldn't pay for them. Younger hot-rodder types love the Lancer Evolution—a great pocket rocket—but that model alone can't bring in mega-sales. Look for sales to peak at 120,000 units a year.
• Mazda cars are loved by the motoring press and enthusiasts (see the pictured MX-5 Miata, for starters), but the company only sold 256,000 back in 2000, and 268,000 last year. Flint feels that "Mazda's problem is weak dealers plus cars that are just a bit smaller than the competition." Perhaps the new CX-7 and CX-9 models may help drive traffic into dealers.
• Subarus are excellent cars that just can't seem to excite a lot of people into buying them. They get great reviews—even Flint says, "I once totaled a Subaru and came out with one quarter-inch scratch on my palm." High praise, but still, the brand only gets lackluster sales.
• Isuzu? Aside from providing actor David Leisure with tidy residuals during the 1980s for the Joe Isuzu commercials, what else has the brand been known for? Not much—these days, it only sells rebadged GM trucks and SUVs, having given up on selling cars entirely.