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Old 03-10-2015, 08:48 PM   #158 (permalink)
oldtamiyaphile
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UFI - '12 Fiat 500 Twinair
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Quote:
Originally Posted by elhigh View Post
Your numbers are not making sense. If you looked it up in an old buyer's guide, I would strongly suggest you corroborate those numbers with another source. It looks like a simple typo to me, a 4 that should be a 1 - if that's the case, then your Insight example should cost $18,990, which would be exactly in line with North American prices, which at the time I think would have been almost the same as Australian prices.
I know from memory they were in the $40k bracket - the buyers guide even makes a point of how expensive they were. There aren't any real tariffs (5% maybe at the time on the wholesale price), and a 21% sales tax at the time, but these applied to the Civic as well.

For comparison the 1st Gen Prius cost $40k new. We know Toyota lost money on each one they sold, and that was just a basic Yaris/Echo with a hybrid system added. The bespoke alloy bodied Insight clearly cost a lot more to develop, so we can only assume the losses were greater.

I infer from this that in the US market Honda lots many thousands on every 1st Gen sold.

But yes, today it's a bit different as the Camry Hybrid only adds $5k over the ICE models. I presume they're no longer selling them at a loss.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf View Post
But crazy cheap for an aluminum-bodied sports car. Which BTW is why I bought my Insight: not primarily as an economy car, but as a direct replacement for my CRX. And one of a series starting with my first Austin-Healey Sprite.
Now this I can fully appreciate I'd love a BMW i3 largely for it's carbon fibre body. I bought my Fiat as it was the lightest decent car on the market.
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Last edited by oldtamiyaphile; 03-10-2015 at 09:25 PM..
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