QOTD: Can the Mid-Size, Mid-Lux Sports Sedan Be Saved?
The Kia Stinger is dead. The Nissan Maxima is going to die after 2023. The Volkswagen Arteon oft seems to be forgotten. Is there hope for mid-size sport sedans (and four-door coupes) with front-wheel or all-wheel drive and priced between $45,000 and $60,000?
Maybe, maybe not. Right now it's a crossover world and we're just living in it. But tastes change. Maybe buyers will gravitate back toward this segment.
Or maybe it's really and truly a dead segment.
Certainly, the quality of the car doesn't seem to matter -- the Stinger is/was very, very good but that's not enough. Though Kia does sorta have a replacement, in a way, in the EV6 GT. Nissan could replace the Maxima with something upscale and EV, too -- we shall see.
[Image: Nissan]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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Probably where Personal Luxury Coupes were about 35 years ago
What do these dying cars have in common?
Pathetic Automatic Scum
I certainly hope it isn't dead but I can see it shrinking in the new SUV/crossover paradigm. The Acura TLX Type S and the Lexus IS are some of my favorite vehicles. Kia dealers ruin the Kia brand unfortunately. The Maxima has been repeatedly disappointing since the end of the Gen 3 models. Volvo's desire to go full true believer in EVs will marginalize the brand further and kill another favorite sedan. 🤞that Mazda comes out with a new 6. A friend has one and I really like that car.
I almost bought an Arteon two years ago when they were selling a few good thousand bellow MSRP, but I found the sound system not so good. Afterwards I moved my focus to Stinger, Genesis and Acura TLX. It took a long time, countless hours of research, test drives, analysis but in the end, this January, Acura TLX A Spec won.