Quote:
Originally Posted by HondaGoneRogue
No, I was saying that now because of the performance of the GT, people will most likely cross-shop them.
|
I tend to agree and here's why.
It might very well be true that, generally speaking, people do not cross-shop luxury branded vehicles with non-luxury branded vehicles. In fact, I would say that's probably a fact. However, performance models present an interesting exception. When it comes to those of us who rank pure performance high on the list of shopping criteria, I would say that cross-shopping between luxury and non-luxury brands is much more common-place. Don't get me wrong, I know that many of us enthusiasts still like to be pampered too. But when push comes to shove I think the majority of us will give up some luxury for better performance.
It's not uncommon for the Z06 to come up in discussion around here, for example. Clearly that's not a luxury car, but it does deliver very compelling performance for the money. Sure, it might carry a very luxury-sized price tag. But it is not a luxury car by any stretch.
The new Mustang GT presents any interesting case. M3 performance for the price of a 328i. On a 40k budget, I'd wager that less than a quarter of M3 owners would genuinely find the 328i more appealing than the Mustang GT. Perhaps more than that would end up with the BMW for other reasons (simple brand preference or "snobbery" among them), but I'll bet that at least half of us, given a 40k budget, will actually go test drive the GT and probably a lot of us would take it home. Granted those numbers are SWAGs, but I doubt I am far off here.
Going forward, people looking for a high performance coupe with a 400hp+ V8 will have to give the Mustang a second look. And lets be honest, after 2013, the M3 won't even satisfy that criteria anymore.
