Now, please keep in mind that I’m far from having a good knowledge of cars.
I’m driving a Isuzu Impulse and noticed that there are other cars, that are essencially the same, but are named Asüna. I know there are more cars like that, that look the same but have different names (I can’t come up with the names though) So why is it like that?
Also, is there any problems that the impulses are notorious for, and also how much do you think it would be worth now; it’s a 1990 with 195,000 km and I’m the 3rd owner.
I don’t know the Asuna brand, but this is quite common - ala a Dodge Stratus is the same car as a Plymouth Breeze.
For example, the Ford Motor Company has 3 automotive divisions: Ford, Mercury, and Lincoln. Ford is the low end, Mercury is the middle-range, and the Lincolns are the high end cars. The theory is that you buy a Ford, grow into a Mercury as your income increases, and then retire driving a Lincoln.
But many of the cars are exactly the same under the hood - for example, the Ford Taurus and the Mercury Sable are the exact same car*, but the Sable is marketed towards a more affluent demographic than the Taurus.
*In all important respects (engine, chassis, etc.) There are minor changes (what you can get as options on a Taurus will come standard on a Sable, the Sable might have some extra options not available to Taurus owners, that sort of thing), but in all important aspects they are the same car.
:smack: sorry for the triple post… it’s so difficult to post anything from here, I thought the first one didn’t get through bcause I had an error message, and then, I guess the 2nd time I tried it posted twice…anyway…sorry about that…
and JohnT: that’s a satisfying awnser…thanks… but I would like to know if the higher class models are disproportionaly more expensive than the lower class model.
Also, anyone knows if its the Impulse or the Asüna that is higher class
I think you asked the question wrong, i.e., I think you want to know if the higher end cars are proportionally more expensive to manufacture than the lower end.
And the general answer is, no. There are higher profit margins on Mercury’s than there are with Fords, which to me indicates that the price of a Mercury viz a Ford is higher than the manufacturing costs of a Mercury viz a Ford.
Also, a lot of the cost is upfront in R&D - for example (since we’re on the brand) the Taurus/Sable development program of the early '80s cost Ford over $3 billion before the first production car* rolled off the Atlanta factory floor. This sort of expense before revenues is not atypical in the auto industry.
*In case you’re interested, the first production car to roll off the line is called “Job 1”, hence the slogan “Quality is Job 1”.
In general, the more expensive a car is, the higher % markup on the price. I don’t know if that’s always true of more expensive versions of the same car, though.
I can’t really answer your question regarding the relative value of the two Isuzu cars, as all of my car sites are US sites, and Isuzu doesn’t sell cars in the States anymore.
Is it worth buying the higher end vehicle for the extras you get or do you pay mainly for the name,
Considering quality/price, which one is the smartest buy, the Ford Taurus or the Mercury Sable; and is this the rule among all manufacturers (for the vehicles that are mostly the same)…
Ahhhh. I think you would probably do better with a basic Sable than you would getting a Taurus and spending for the options that would “make” it a Sable. But, in all honesty, I don’t know for certain.
My favorite example of the same car under different nameplate would have to be the Ford Escort/Mercury Tracer. I’ve always joked that they named it that because the Mercury people just “traced” the Escort blueprint.
And here I thought the OP was asking why some identical cars are renamed in foreign markets. The most puzzling example of this has always been the Nissan Sentra. In Mexico, it’s called the Tsuru. <!> I can understand that Sentra sound like a Spanish word, (but AFAIK isn’t, and I’m pretty fluent in Spanish), but Tsuru? That’s even more of a mouthful to pronounce in Spanish than it is in English. ::scratches head::
At first, I thought it might be related to the Spanish language rule that no word can begin with the letter S followed by a consonant, but that doesn’t apply here.
Another strange name for a Mexican-market car … the Chevrolet Chevy.
Why is the Ford Mondeo called the Ford Contour in the US and Canada, even though it’s marketed as the Mondeo in other English-speaking countries?
As for Asüna … GM owns Isuzu. Asüna was a short-lived GM brand marketed only in Canada, selling rebadged Isuzus at Pontiac dealers in 1992 and 1993. Essentialy, it was the Canadian Pontiac version of the Geo subbrand found in Chevrolet dealers at the time.
“Asüna” has the same meaning in Japanese as Ciera and Escalade in the US … nothing. It’s a made-up word.
