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Originally Posted by stealth.pilot
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phatcat
Quote:
Originally Posted by clar
Many of those other manufacturers always come in with their guns blazing and proclaiming that they want to take on the 3/5 series, or worst, their M variants. They do not fully comprehend the challenge of taking on BMW in that market segment. Those BMWs have pedigree on their side and have been continuously refined and improved over generations. The intricate balance of comfort, sportiness, and performance is almost second to none. Merc is probably the only viable challenger to BMW with the rest being also rans hoping to snare some disgruntled BMW buyers, or people who just want to be different from the best. Infinity used to be treated with great respect by BMW, but they have fallen off the curve in a pretty big way. Audi has never been up to scratch and always resorting to fancy interior to win over buyers. Porsche is stronger in some areas, but they belong to a higher strata. I expect the next generation of M cars to take a bigger leap forward as the previous leap was a little lack lustre. Time to put some more distance over the rest...
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Can't completely agree with you on this though. If this is what Toyota thought, they would have never created the brand Lexus to take on the German luxury brands. At the time people thought they were crazy too, that they don't know what they were doing and wouldn't be successful.
Maybe it's over their head to try to take on the Germans in the performance sedan segment, but it's a certain failure if they don't even try. |
They have also been very successful at it.
You got to remember that most people are buying 330i and 530i. Lexus can compete with these and either give you 6 cylinder for a 4 cylinder price with more standard equipment.
It's the high end the Japanese struggle with, and largely because they know the margins are better if you have fewer more mainstream products, so they don't bother to invest. Cars like the GSF don't represent their R&D effort in performance, there is no R&D. These are F models are not much more than trim packages. |
Agree with most of what you said but there is a difference between F model and F package exactly like M package and M model, GSF is F model with high performane brakes, suspension, transmission, differential and ofcourse engine (V8). But there is no different engines for different models... GSF has the same engine RCF has...