Korea Week: Tiburon, Take Two?
On a recent visit to HATCI, TTAC’s Michael Karesh was granted a peek at the forthcoming Hyundai coupe, known in concept form as Veloster. As our graph of the day shows, Hyundai’s never had great sales success with its front-drive coupes. At its best, the Tiburon hit 20k annual sales for a few year with the last design, but the appeal wore off and sales dropped to about half that level. And with sales of the Genesis sedan and coupe combining for fewer than 24k sales through October of this year, it seems that Hyundai isn’t setting the US coupe market afire with its rear-drive offering either. For comparison, the Chevy Camaro racked up at about 71,500 sales through October. But with 40 MPG highway apparently on-tap for this new Elantra-based coupe, the Velostiburon is on track to out-green the hybrid Honda CR-Z. And by the looks of things, it should at least give the Scion tC a run for the extroverted budget-coupe market. Could Korea’s coupe curse be on the way out?
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On the other hand, the Genesis Coupe is kicking the crap out of the Z.
Maybe it's just my area (Tampa Bay) but I've seen a fair number of Genesis Coupes and Tiburons used to be pretty common (though I haven't seen quite as many lately). I wonder how Hyundai looks nationwide, and if this part of Florida is a place where they have a strong presence? It's sad that they don't do better, but their demographic is young and the young can't afford the insurance (or the gas, or they don't care about sports cars). Old people with lots of cash will shell out for the latest nostalgiamobile, and insurance is not an issue either way. The fact that the Camaro is selling so much in comparison just proves my point. Nobody buys a Camaro for quality or because it's the best new thing (though I admit it's very good, and they have a real suspension), they buy them for nostalgia. The design blatantly plays the nostalgia card.
Asian coupes simply don't sell in the US (look at the sales figures for the Z and RX-8). It's a good move on Hyundai's part to take the next gen Genesis coupe upmarket and compete against the likes of the G37.