Dear Enthusiasts: You Aren't the Target Market
Automakers don't usually aim their new cars at enthusiasts. Most of the time, they don't care about you.
Automotive enthusiasts are an interesting bunch. Forums, Reddit, and social media are full of people who love a particular vehicle model or brand the way some people love a football team. And like with football fans, the the group making the game has only a marginal regard for those enthusiastic about the game.
As someone who interacts with and writes about cars and trucks, I run into enthusiasts all the time. Usually in the comments section. Generally with nothing good to say. Such is the way of the Interwebs.
What automotive enthusiasts can’t seem to fathom is that the people in charge of making cars aren’t really that concerned about what those enthusiasts think. There’s reasons for that.
To start with, automakers are in the business of making new vehicles. Enthusiasts, for their part, are usually obsessed with old vehicles. Thus, market-wise, the two never cross financial paths. Most enthusiasts have a particular “golden age” for their chosen favorite vehicle and that time period almost never includes the current model.
As a recent example, the Toyota 4Runner just entered its sixth generation as an SUV. Most forums and social media groups dedicated to the 4Runner are obsessed with the first four generations. A few tout the previous generation. All of them are united against the new sixth generation as some sort of abomination. This is typical of most enthusiast forums and groups for any vehicle model.
There are some exceptions. And those exceptions are usually in one category: low volume models.
The Nissan Z, for example, has a very active fan group. When the new-generation Z was introduced (previously it was the 370Z, and before that the 350Z, and so on back to the original Fairlady), their greatest complaint about the new car wasn’t the car. It was the name. Go figure. But they were almost all united in their love of Nissan “staying to the core appeal” of the sports car. For Nissan, this is a target group and the company carefully curates its relationship with that group. Because the Z is a pretty low volume seller. And it mostly sells to those who are already, well.. sold on it. It’s an enthusiast’s car.
But notice the difference between these two examples. The 4Runner is a mass volume seller. It’s got a wide market with a lot of buyers. The Z is a small volume seller. It has a narrow market with a small group of buyers. Most vehicles fall into the former category and are thus more like the 4Runner than the Z. Nissan, for example, doesn’t cater to enthusiasts of the Rogue or the Sentra. They exist (go ahead and Google it), but Nissan isn’t too concerned with them. Just as Toyota mostly just gives lip service to the 4Runner’s enthusiasts.
These are just two examples of an automotive market that contains hundreds of vehicle models and thus hundreds of enthusiast groups for them. That’s just currently-made models. It’s amazing that years after its culling from the market, thousands of enthusiasts still lament the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution. A car that none of them bought new when it was new. And yet they wonder why Mitsubishi would be so stupid as to stop making the Evo.
With only very rare exceptions, automakers aren’t really all that concerned about the enthusiasts for their models. If you aren’t buying a new car (and face it, you aren’t), you don’t affect their bottom line.