dublet Posted April 9, 2017 Report Share Posted April 9, 2017 So I was looking through Celica related information and I found this link giving sales figures for the Celica in the US. They're pretty stark figures. In the last year Toyota only managed to sell 9 in the whole of the US. Even the gen 6 was a disaster compared to the 5. And the gen 7 managed to outsell the 6 over there. Total figures are: 575,269 for the 5, 113,545 for the 6 and 154,125 for the 7. http://carsalesbase.com/us-car-sales-data/toyota/toyota-celica/ Sadly the sales figures for Europe don't really go back all that far. http://carsalesbase.com/european-car-sales-data/toyota/toyota-celica/ It's not really any wonder they discontinued the model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sherv Posted April 10, 2017 Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 A lot of the older gens were sold with the weaker powered engines as well.Ive seen plenty of the US guys with 162s seeing the 3sge as an actual upgrade.Though thats not the only factor.It shows that the figures tell that it was time for change.To be honest Toyota pretty much moved away from anything remotely performance based a long time back,though generally apart from the turbo cars the Celica was never really an out and out sports car,so i wonder which niche the Celica was going to fit into moving forwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bazz54 Posted April 10, 2017 Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 (edited) I recall seeing a figure of just 18,000 for US sales of the GT86 during its peak year (2013); guess that fits the trend. Edited April 10, 2017 by bazz54 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freeman558 Posted April 10, 2017 Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 It's understandable in Europe or at least the UK. Front Wheel drive with not much power or practicality when compared to (even their own) hot hatch. Why go for a celica? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dublet Posted April 10, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 7 hours ago, Sherv said: A lot of the older gens were sold with the weaker powered engines as well.Ive seen plenty of the US guys with 162s seeing the 3sge as an actual upgrade.Though thats not the only factor.It shows that the figures tell that it was time for change.To be honest Toyota pretty much moved away from anything remotely performance based a long time back,though generally apart from the turbo cars the Celica was never really an out and out sports car,so i wonder which niche the Celica was going to fit into moving forwards. 2 hours ago, Freeman558 said: It's understandable in Europe or at least the UK. Front Wheel drive with not much power or practicality when compared to (even their own) hot hatch. Why go for a celica? Does it really make sense? The gen 5 had very similar models to the 6, though the low power was a 1.6, not a 1.8. The 6 still had a high performance model, like the 5. So in pure performance terms, that surely can't be it. If the points above were right, then how did they manage to sell five gen 5s for every gen 6? Having owned both, there's not really that much difference in terms of driving, power or general ownership terms. Even the gen 7 managed to outsell the 6, which I thought was surprising, and that never really had a performance model (well, no 4WD or turbo). And the high and low power versions both had the same engine capacity. I would be nice to get sales figures for gen 1-4 to see if the gen 5 was an outlier in terms of sales, or if the gen 6 doomed the series. 6 hours ago, bazz54 said: I recall seeing a figure of just 18,000 for US sales of the GT86 during its peak year (2013); guess that fits the trend. That would kind of suggest it's a one off model unlikely to have a successor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev 16v Posted April 10, 2017 Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 Coupes are about fashion. I would expect to see the same drop off in sales figures for similar coupe models from other manufacturers for that reason alone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ams Posted April 10, 2017 Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 With the US, Id imagine a lot of it do with tax. Sometime in that time line, car manufacturers (and buyers) clocked on to the fact that SUVs could be classed as business vehicles and 100% written off as tax on purchase - which led to a huge rise in popularity of SUVs around the same time of the decline shown above. For UK figures try howmanyleft - im sure they have some figures on there of the original registrations - may not go back as far as the 5. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Freeman558 Posted April 10, 2017 Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 2 hours ago, Kev 16v said: Coupes are about fashion. I would expect to see the same drop off in sales figures for similar coupe models from other manufacturers for that reason alone. Agreed, Motoring journalists are always citing the Hot Hatch as being the death of the Coupe, the coupe just no long being fashionable for people that wanted a cheap performance car. It didn't help that the coupes were often based on a sensible four door family saloon. Honda's Prelude (Killed off after the 5th Gen) With the 5th Gen Honda had, apparently, listened to their customers who wanted a larger boot and a cheaper car. The result was that it sold worse than the 4th Gen. Ford's Probe and Cougar (Of course you could blame the Probes failure on Alan Partridge ) Vauxhall's Calibra As far as I know these were all flops which, imo, was because they didn't offer anything you couldn't get with a more practical saloon. I am also pretty sure all of these are based on a four door saloon, Accord, Modeo and Vectra and in the end the saloon models had higher performance engines (at least in the UK market) so there wasn't really anything better about these Coupes except appearance and the Hot Hatch had already stolen the coupe market for affordable performance car. I've forgotten what my point was or if I ever had one......Hmmm I might need a distraction.. Look! An Eagle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kev 16v Posted April 10, 2017 Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 My apologies..I wasn't referring to hot hatches as competition, although of course they are, and really should have been a bit more specific. What I meant was, most new car buyers will buy a coupe because it's a new model, and fashionable to be seen driving a new shape version. Once that shape has been around for two or three years, the same new coupe buyers are then in the market for something only recently made available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dublet Posted April 10, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 10, 2017 10 hours ago, ams said: With the US, Id imagine a lot of it do with tax. Sometime in that time line, car manufacturers (and buyers) clocked on to the fact that SUVs could be classed as business vehicles and 100% written off as tax on purchase - which led to a huge rise in popularity of SUVs around the same time of the decline shown above. For UK figures try howmanyleft - im sure they have some figures on there of the original registrations - may not go back as far as the 5. That's a fair point. There's certainly something to be said about SUV popularity in the 90s in the US. One wouldn't have thought that people interested in coupes could be that interested in SUVs, as we're all such dedicated followers of fashion. I guess the price motive is a powerful one. howmanyleft doesn't go very far back. The hot hatch theory is interesting. I don't think Toyota ever did a proper hot hatch, only ever lukewarm ones at best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ams Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 Also around the late 90s / early 00s, people started taking more of an interest in MPG and you started seeing it printed at the bottom of adverts, the rise and popularity of the diesel also coincided with this. My mate who runs a petrol station used to sell less than 10% diesel around 20 years ago (when I worked on his till) - now its over 50%. The 6 and 7 at there time of release were a sort of half way house (with the exception of the gt4) - not huge performance or huge MPG so perhaps a limited market Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dublet Posted April 11, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 I wonder if Toyota missed a beat by not having a diesel gen 6 & 7. Imagine a 2AD-FHV gen 7 with 177bhp and 400Nm@2krpm. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal670 Posted April 11, 2017 Report Share Posted April 11, 2017 (edited) IIRC it was around that time diesel coupes were starting to appear. Remember when Peugeot made a 406 coupe diesel? Ironically I could actually have seen a diesel Celica selling fairly well over here! Edited April 11, 2017 by Cal670 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonSam50 Posted April 17, 2017 Report Share Posted April 17, 2017 Guess these figures settle the old debate eh [emoji23] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ams Posted April 18, 2017 Report Share Posted April 18, 2017 On 11/04/2017 at 20:39, dublet said: I wonder if Toyota missed a beat by not having a diesel gen 6 & 7. Imagine a 2AD-FHV gen 7 with 177bhp and 400Nm@2krpm. I agree BUT Toyota have been very reluctant with diesels. Until about 2000 most of the car diesels were Peugeot units (which were actually very good back then) With Lexus, they always said they didnt want to put a diesel engine in until they were happy with it, they eventually did and then they saw a big boost in sales BUT they dropped diesels quite quickly again because although they were reliable they couldnt match the 300,000 mile reliability of the petrol engines. The word is that they will return to the coupe market with a hybrid, My next newish car purchase im planning on is an rc300h unless they bring back the celica badge (silly I know) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dublet Posted April 18, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 18, 2017 I wouldn't hold out much hope for the next Toyota Coupe. I know there's a Supra-esque car in the pipeline. But look at their latest model.. There's not many new-ish cars I actually find interesting. If anything, I would be very tempted by a Tesla Model 3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fruitloop Posted April 19, 2017 Report Share Posted April 19, 2017 Interesting comments regarding the decline of coupes, I currently have a Celica gen 6 and I also own a 93 Calibra redtop. Im 23 so missed when coupes were big in the 90s but I absolutely love them! I believe the Calibra could have been great, I think it stills looks fantastic even today however with a cavalier chassis and uninspiring engines like the 8valve engine and 16 valve ecotech it was always going to be the "poor mans coupe" After buying my celica I don't know why anyone would buy a Calibra tbh better in every way I can think of! Theres a guy on my street with a turbo Fiat Coupe, remember them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal670 Posted April 20, 2017 Report Share Posted April 20, 2017 18 hours ago, fruitloop said: Theres a guy on my street with a turbo Fiat Coupe, remember them? I'm surprised they didn't catch on more as they were extremely quick for their time. I guess the styling was too "love it or hate it" for most people. Personally, I love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EasyRight89 Posted April 20, 2017 Report Share Posted April 20, 2017 On 10/04/2017 at 21:16, dublet said: The hot hatch theory is interesting. I don't think Toyota ever did a proper hot hatch, only ever lukewarm ones at best. That's about to change, the new Yaris GRMN looks like the real deal and the specs are decent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dublet Posted April 20, 2017 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2017 4 hours ago, EasyRight89 said: That's about to change, the new Yaris GRMN looks like the real deal and the specs are decent. Too little, too late? Watch it flop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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