So are you saying (now that it is more clear) that the car was actually "too expensive" or that entire segment of the market was?
The entire segment of the market was, and the Supra was at the top of the pile. And it accelerated from there even faster than its competitors were. This isn't something that should be surprising two decades after the fact.
As for the pricing I don't really agree that 39k is far too expensive for the market
Too bad you couldn't go back in time 25 years to convince all the people who
weren't buying them otherwise.
The RX-7 was in that price range,
The FD RX-7 was so much cheaper than the Supra Turbo that it's price was in line with the normally aspirated Supra. By the time Mazda gave up on it it was a full ten grand cheaper. It's sales still collapsed as soon as the price increases started.
the NSX was well above that price range,
Which would be why the NSX sold even worse than the Supra Turbo, except the two years where the Supra approached/exceeded 50,000 and the NSX was the
better seller.
the VR-4 was in the same pricing as the Supra
Which is reflected by its sales
also collapsing around 1993.
and the 300zx was also in that pricing.
Which is reflected by its sales
also collapsing around 1993.
So:
when as said the cars it competed against in that same market were equally priced.
Worked out well for them, didn't it?
American products in said segment that weren't all that capable?
This would also be the "too late" part. The 300ZX had the good graces of coming out when the Corvette looked the same as it had for 5 years and hadn't really changed in 4, the Camaro looked the same as it had for 7, the Mustang for 11, the 944 for (functionally) 13, etc. A lot of those still wouldn't be substantially updated or replaced for a few more years, even though some were already long in the tooth. It was affordable-ish (or at least not hopelessly more money than the competition), well designed and perfectly suited to its market in equipment, to the extent that American journalists didn't necessarily think the Supra was better even as the older 300ZX's price also marched steadily upward. That's why they sold so fantastically well the first year and not bad at all the second.
The A80 came out 4 years later. A Supra was a very capable car upon debut. It's not so capable that the normally aspirated model of the car could completely shame a 4th generation Z28 Camaro that it exceeded in price by
over fifteen thousand dollars. Maybe if it had come out a year earlier.
And while I can see the argument that it was worth the extra 5 grand on top of a base LT1 C4 to get a somewhat better equipped, much better screwed together and thought out vehicle (not that anyone took much advantage of it then), it certainly wasn't
13 grand more capable than a (much better equipped compared to 1993) base LT4 C4
The people who saw that these cars were approaching $35,000 and stopped buying them entirely. It didn't matter if it was the FD, the Supra Turbo, the VR-4 or the 300zx. The sales of all of them completely cratered as soon as they began sniffing (nevermind when they began greatly exceeding) Corvette money. The people buying them certainly didn't all go buy Corvettes and Trans Ams and Mustang Cobras instead, but they still weren't buying anything imported from Japan beyond the 160hp 3000GT.
Also I'd imagine that the 92' economic issues in japan and the slow down if imports into the U.S. that basically were the demise of that market played a bigger role than GM's C4 replacement incoming.
I'm not talking about the demise of the market in general. I'm talking about why Toyota slashed $11,000 off the cost of the car for its final two years on the US market, questioning aloud whether it was mere coincidence that it happened the same year as the debut of a highly anticipated entrant in the market that it couldn't so easily compete with anymore.
