Quote: Originally posted by steveV6 on 24 August 2005
Quote: Originally posted by gazcaddy on 24 August 2005
Renault will have made a fortune on each unit sold
I very much doubt it!! Especially seeing that most were sold at less than 27k to start with. Take the cost of developement, production of non standard parts etc.. in relation to the amount of units sold world wide, i think the profit line would be slim, if any. Mind you what a great pulicity stunt.
I agree - rarely do such projects actually return a profit for the manufacturer, theyre usually a costly loss-maker, but overall have the knock-on effect of raising the profile of the range as a whole, so by making the Clio V6, they sell more 1.2s to wannabee V6 owners, and thats how the project is justified.
Thats why Ford made the Escort Cosworth. The mk5 escort was a flop - really dissapointing sales figures. Then they brought out the cossie, and sales across the range improved.
The reverse was true with the Focus RS, the range was selling so well, that there was no incentive to do a limited run of loss-making high performance model. They kept it back until the mk1 focus was reaching end of life then used the RS as a tool to boost sales of run-out stock. Theyve already canned (or at least long-term postponed) any plans to do a mk2 Focus RS for the same reason!
Why lose money doing a high performance low volume version, when they can sell more cars than they can make of other more profitable variants in the first place?