I suspect many of us were irritated by your OP because the thread title title (and your last sentence and the OP title) asked why “Europeans make the world’s most desirable cars” (emphasis mine), and yet you started off with that paragraph you quoted. This implies that the type of car people stop and take pictures of are desirable cars. To most consumers, that’s not the case. There are affordable sports cars that look very attractive and/or stunning, but most people don’t buy them because most people don’t find them desirable (i.e. would actually want to own).
I think what you’re really trying to ask is why Europeans make the most visually stunning and/or outrageously fast sports cars. I suspect it’s mainly because motor sports is not a big part of culture outside Europe. (Apart from NASCAR, which really doesn’t lend itself to derived street-legal cars.)
I think the answer is that any rare and unusual car will attract attention. Park a Japanese micro car that no one in the US has seen and it will attract a crowd.
The Maserati, Ferrari, and Lamborghini cars of the world are made in only tiny numbers and don’t look like anything else. The Acura NSX fit right into that mold and was equally gaped at when it arrived.
As did Dodge Vipers when they first came out, and were rare (they may well still get that kind of attention, particularly a tricked-out one).
Heck, even PT Cruisers got that sort of attention the first year or so that they were available, when they were in high demand, and dealers were either (a) establishing waiting lists, or (b) selling them for several thousand over list.
Glad you guys brought up the Acura NSX and the PT Cruiser.
Yes, these were highly desired cars, drool-worthy, photographable, whatever term you want to use. But, the companies that made them failed to create a consistent interest in the brand and failed to create new cars that generated as much interest.
On the other hand, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, etc, have been doing this for decades and always manage to pump out cars that a lot of people desire.
Why are the companies that have been doing this successfully for decades mostly in Europe?
In 2000, PT Cruisers were rare, and didn’t look like anything else that was on the road then. Combine that with a fair amount of press coverage, and they got that attention. By 2002, there weren’t waiting lists for Cruisers any more, and they had gone from rare to relatively common. They didn’t attract that sort of attention any longer (and, yes, it’s true that Chrysler didn’t create another car which got that kind of buzz). At a price of about $20,000, they were in reach for many car buyers, and the scarcity and uniqueness simply weren’t sustainable.
Meanwhile, Lambos, Ferraris, etc. have always been rare here in the U.S. They’re six-figure cars, with very limited numbers imported to this country. Even Porsches, which are usually not as expensive as Lambos or Ferraris (and are a bit more common on the road) are still very expensive compared to most mass-market cars.
I don’t discount the exotic looks of those cars as being part of their appeal (the Italian cars moreso than the German ones). I suspect that part of it is an Italian design sensibility, but I also suspect that those sorts of designs might not be practical to build on the sort of assembly line which the major American and Japanese companies use. Ferrari makes a total of under 7,000 cars a year; even a light-selling American or Japanese model probably sells more than that (edit: for example, the Chevrolet Corvette’s annual production over the past few years has varied from 12K to 40K, with smaller runs over the past few years, undoubtedly due in part to soft auto sales overall).
Their disastrous merger with Daimler (and the subsequent separation) probably didn’t help, along with their later filing for Chapter 11. Although some might argue that the new Challenger is just as impressive (visually).
I like the looks of the Challenger, though it’s a very different kind of “striking” than the Cruiser was. If I hadn’t had my heart set on the Mustang which I just bought – another car which is also now taking some definite styling cues from its early 1970s ancestor – I would have considered a Challenger.
Exotic car marques make very little business sense. Ferrari was established primarily as a racing team that sold some road cars to fund racing. Enzo Ferrari famously hated the road car business and its customers, and it’s not hard to understand why, if you think about the sheer presumptuousness and egomania that would drive a person to buy one. Lamborghini was founded by a wealthy industrialist who drove Ferraris and was just such an asshole that even a Ferrari wasn’t good enough for him. Both firms were useless at actually making money/being viable businesses and are now just marketing/brand image/vanity projects for the parent companies FIAT/Chrysler and VAG.
Porsche was the same thing and was mostly bankrupt until they started making the Cayenne. The Cayenne has been BY FAR the best selling Porsche for every year it has been made. Porsche is primarily a maker of V8 powered light trucks and now (with the Panamera) V8 powered large sedans. The ass-engined sports car business is mostly a marketing/brand image/vanity project. I have always maintained that what Porsche really needs to do is get into the 3/4t truck market, since they mostly cater to the same set of douchebag customers. “Wait, it’s a huge lifted pickup truck and a Porsche?” :eek:. They would never be able to keep one on the lot.
I think it’s because European industries/Economies are mired in the kind of structural inefficiency and stagnation that tends to result in shitty, unprofitable companies like these to continue to exist. They would never have a chance in competetive, demanding markets like the US.
It’s not particularly challenging for any first world country to build a fast car for $350,000, GM and Nissan can make $90k cars that are just as fast if not faster and still make money. The market for sports cars is just like the market for all other luxury goods - it’s 99% to 100% marketing bullshit and if you keep your sales volume low enough, there won’t ever be enough people to call you on it.
