The Toyota Tundra. The Quiche Truck
In news which will shock absolutely no-one, Business Week reports that Toyota and Nissan’s attempts to woo buyers of big pick-up trucks are failing (or failed, depending which way you’re looking at it). “The Big Three successfully beat back the Toyota incursion into the pickup market” said Brian Johnson, auto analyst for UK bank Barclays, “We had expected Toyota would do what they did with cars and take over the market. Their share gains have been frustratingly slow.” As with most things, the devil is in the details. Or in this case, the devil is in the market research.
For instance, according to Nielsen Claritas data, Toyota truck owners are 38 percent more likely to fly on business than typical truck drivers. Their hobbies are more toward things like mountain biking or backpacking. Now compare this to buyers of Big Three trucks. They are more likely to own a rifle or two. The data also shows that GM and Ford truck owners are more likely to dine at “ Cracker Barrel” restaurants, have dial-up internet (does that still exist?!) and use the hardcopy of the Yellow Pages.
Starting to get a picture of your typical Big Three truck driver? Toyota truck drivers are more likely to dine at steakhouses, shop online and own golf clubs. Yep, Toyota took aim at the truck market and missed by a country mile. GM, Ford and Chrysler trucks have the working men and women of the United States buying their trucks and Toyota have yuppies on their side. “Toyota planned for a (truck) market that really didn’t exist,” said Alan L. Baum, an auto analyst at Baum & Associates, “They just didn’t hit a chord with buyer. It was almost comical.” It is kind of ironic, when you think about it. Toyota won the car market over by building cars in vanilla form (and I mean that in a good way). But when it came to building a truck, they failed because it required the vehicle to have some character…
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You are correct and incorrect. Uneducated people are likely to buy the big three. But to say tundra is not for the working man is incorrect. The reason being that uneducated people tend to Work the tougher job's and can only afford a low rate pre-owned domestic. I'm a very hard working construction worker, that happens to be semi-Educated. (College Degrees) .FACT: Cheaper, Better Quality, Style, Better resale value . Why not buy Tundra? Is it that it's made in the U.S with more American parts? Yes the tundra keeps more money in the U.S Than any of the big three Poor options. Oh And smoke Most of the big threes sport cars in the 1/4 mile.
I'll never forget when my former employer was forced to switch from the reliable T100s over to the 'new' 2000 Tundras for local deliveries. A few thousand miles in when they started blowing spark plugs out of the heads and we got tired of the dealership excuses, we call Toyota corporate to see what we could do about it. Toyota's response was "Our trucks are not made for commercial use". We switched to Chevy's and Ford's and never looked back.