Quote:
Originally Posted by SteveC
Within Europe, Honda, Nissan and Toyota have never been anything like the equivalent of MB, OOOO or BMW and have never occupied clear well differentiated slots in the market so its difficult to see how the German and Japanese brands equate in any manner. People aspire to own the German brands, they are so called status symbols, items of desire, offer a wide, well differentiated range of products. Their showrooms are standardized around the high quality the brands aspire to. In Europe Japanese cars are mainly seen as high quality, cheaper to run utility brands that address a very different market and barely compete
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Agree, my analogy is definitely more suited to the US/Canada. But I'm not too sure about the German brands being "status symbols, items of desire". The dealerships are not what they used to be - the clientele looking for an X1 is quite different from someone shopping for an M5. Quite a few ppl have shared the perspective that it now feels quite strange to go to the dealership to go look at a high-end //M model sitting on the same floor when a bunch of other buyers are busy checking out the X1 or the 2 series.