Why can't big coupes sell??

As I took delivery of my "new" (well, new to me) '01 Grand Prix GT coupe today, I wondered to myself why it is this car was cancelled. After I drove it for about 30 miles, now I really wonder. Why does everyone feel they need 4 doors? I like merging onto the highway way better with a coupe...no pillar in your way.

Does this mean my next "new" car (I will never buy brand new again, unless its a Camaro where I need to be super-anal :)) will have to be a GTO? I'm now sold on the big coupe idea :)

I have a Grand Prix GT coupe too, I love the car, the only thing that could make it better would be RWD and a V8:D (that is were my Camaro comes in.) I have never felt the need or disire to own a sedan version.

Didn't the Coupe make up about 20% of GPs? I swear see more than that.

20% of 150,000 is 30,000 cars

I guess GM felt that the cost of making a 2 door wasn't worth 30,000+ cars a year:rolleyes:

There's a couple of reasons buyers have shunned large coupes. First, a large coupe requires very large doors which are heavy and difficult to open in crowded parking spaces. (On a side note, I remember reading where the 4th gen f-body's doors were the longest in production at the time.) And second, if people are buying a large car it often means they need the room, and therefore want convenient access to all that room.

Me, I've never been concerned with the number of doors. I had a 4-door GP GT and didn't mind the extra doors at all. Maybe it helped that the 4-door and 2-door shared the exact same roof panel.

As for merging on a highway, if you adjust your mirrors correctly you should never need to shoulder check when changing lanes ;).

Accord Coupes seem to seel just fine. Same with Solaras, Bimmers and a few others as your raise the price.

I think the GP coupe just wasnt that appealing to most car buyers. It didnt exactly stand out in any category or have a the "reliable car" reputation that the imports do.

I would tend to disagree. Even in its lowest year, the car sold at 80/20 sedan/coupe in 2002. Figure 150,000 sales a year, of which 30,000 are coupes. Hardly a sales failure...

Z28x,
My dealership I used to work for always had a 50/50 sedan/coupe ratio...we must have been the oddballs. Then again, we did sell 35 '02 Firebirds :) But I remember selling at least 4 '02 coupes to people who only bought them because they knew there'd be no coupes after '02.

I will never own a 4 door if I don't have to. But with my initial reaction to this GP, maybe in 7-8 years when I have used it up with 200k miles on it, I'll have to go to a GP 4 door :) I need something FWD for snow...

I think a major reason that the Grand Prix coupe was not continued was because fo GTO...

I pretty much see GTO being everything that a lot of the Grand Prix coupe people wanted the Grand Prix to be... RWD, and V8 in a larger sized coupe.

Even the styling of GTO should cater to Grand Prix fans.

Originally posted by Darth Xed
I think a major reason that the Grand Prix coupe was not continued was because fo GTO...

I pretty much see GTO being everything that a lot of the Grand Prix coupe people wanted the Grand Prix to be... RWD, and V8 in a larger sized coupe.

Even the styling of GTO should cater to Grand Prix fans.

I agree with that partially. A lot of GTP owners will go to the GTO, but what about those that don't want a V8 or do want FWD? A GP coupe should have been built, at least until 2007 when the GP goes RWD.

Originally posted by Z28x
I agree with that partially. A lot of GTP owners will go to the GTO, but what about those that don't want a V8 or do want FWD? A GP coupe should have been built, at least until 2007 when the GP goes RWD.


GM still makes Monte Carlo SS...

In theory, this should cater to those who did not like the change over to V8, RWD at Pontiac... you can still get your V6 FWD car, and now, you can even get it SuperCharged... just like the GTP Coupe was.

Coupes have been disappearing from the market since the late '80s. Look back at the decade of the 1970s, and the same thing happened to convertibles. Oddly enough, the culprit in that case was the "personal luxury coupe."

Why did the Lincoln Mark III take off in the disco era? Why did the Mark VIII check out during the clinton administration? Times change.

Even compact coupes have disapeared:

Prelude
MX6
Probe
240SX
RX-7
DSM
MX3
200SX
Corrodo

All the current 'young people' cars are being made in 4 door form:
WRX
EVO
Mazda Speed Protege
rx8
SRT4
Corolla S
Civic SI Sedan
I even remember seeing a z24 sedan a few years back.

It seems like people don't want 2 doors in general anymore, be it coupe, hatch or fastback.

People like the practicality. That same person who goes to AUTO X on saturday with his SRT-4 can hit the car pool lane on monday.

BMW, Mercedes, Infinity - You can still get coupes, but they are no longer marketed for younger people.

As a double owner of Ford's Thunderbird Supercoupe, I'll tell you if the Grand Prix GTP was rear wheel drive it would almost certainly would have been the car I bought to replace my 1st SC.

Nothing can beat a big powerful coupe in style & performance IMHO, but it's got to be driven by the right wheels. What's the point of putting 260+ horsepower through the same tires you need for steering, that handles 80% of your brakeing ability, and the tires you need to avoid heading over a cliff on a sharp turn on California Highway 1. Can you say overload?

As for the Lincoln Mark VIII, that car was just plain ugly :barf:, regardless as whose administration is in office.

The Bush administration oversaw the death of Camaro. What's the point? :confused:

I guess I might be going too deep into this, but was the 2-door GP really called a coupe? :confused:

I think it was called just a "2-door sedan". At least that's what it looks like to me. Doesn't fit into my definition of a coupe... :think:

But, then again, what do I know... :D

TS

Originally posted by 95GRNZ
I guess I might be going too deep into this, but was the 2-door GP really called a coupe? :confused:

I think it was called just a "2-door sedan". At least that's what it looks like to me. Doesn't fit into my definition of a coupe... :think:

But, then again, what do I know... :D

TS

I think SAE's definition of a coupe is a vehicle with less than 33 cubic feet of space in the rear seat. So yes, many large 2-doors are not coupes by the strict definition. However, I think since the majority believe coupe = 2 doors, that has taken over as the practical definition.

Nissan had the right idea with the Maxima in the early 90's with their 4DSC "Four-door sports car" theme, and I think that's kind of where we landed today. Sedans are just as sporty now, and as quick as any two-door version of anything. Plus there's the added convenience of two extra doors for friends, babies, pets, and luggage. It's not cool to have to climb out of a back seat and play musical car seats when you're picking up/dropping people off.

And as stated above, to the untrained eye, the GTO would have had too much in common with a 2 door Grand prix. Plus, you can get the same setup in a Monte.

Originally posted by Darth Xed
GM still makes Monte Carlo SS...

In theory, this should cater to those who did not like the change over to V8, RWD at Pontiac... you can still get your V6 FWD car, and now, you can even get it SuperCharged... just like the GTP Coupe was.

By this logic the Camaro shouldn't be brought back then, GM has the GTO for the RWD Drive V8 people and the MC for the V6 coupe fans and for those that want RWD and a V6 they can go with the CTS.

Some people want a Pontiac and not a Chevy.

The GTO does seem to take over the place of The Firebird/Camaro "RWD coupe" idea, but I'm hoping they'll do something like they do with the Corvette and make the GTO pontiac's "highest performance" model (hopefully with more HP by then) and still allow the Camaro/Firebird to exist along side it.

Originally posted by Z28x
By this logic the Camaro shouldn't be brought back then, GM has the GTO for the RWD Drive V8 people and the MC for the V6 coupe fans and for those that want RWD and a V6 they can go with the CTS.


I don't really think this line of thought eliminates a place for a Camaro (or Firebird)

I don't consider a Camaro and a Monte Carlo or GTO to be the same type of coupe at all. GTO and Monte Carlo are large, upright personal luxury coupes, just a different way of going about the drivetrain.

Camaro is a low-slung, affordable sports car... a totally different animal.


Some people want a Pontiac and not a Chevy.

Absolutely, I agree... but it's hard to expect GM to give every one of it's divisions every type of car and drivetrain layout...

Originally posted by 97QuasarBlue3.8
The GTO does seem to take over the place of The Firebird/Camaro "RWD coupe" idea, but I'm hoping they'll do something like they do with the Corvette and make the GTO pontiac's "highest performance" model (hopefully with more HP by then) and still allow the Camaro/Firebird to exist along side it.

I hope the GTO isn't the Highest perfomance car in the Pontiac line up for long.....it is a good performer, but still not a 'performance' car IMO....it is more boulevard bruiser/Muscle car to me. With more power it still won't fit my image of a sports car. Besides- with only 18000 of them a year, there won't be an abundance of them to go around.

What was this post about again??:lol I think the GTO is gonna prove that big coupes/2 door sedans can make it. Caddy's got the V8 CTS that'll sell well too I think. As for the FWD fans, I see alot of stuff going back to RWD soon. I think FWD's are going to be all compacts again before long.

Trends maybe. Sedans seem to be making a comeback. Performance is no longer measured by the number of doors. One can buy an M5 or in 04 a CTS-V that's as fast as a c5, or even an AMG sedan that'll run with a z06. The funny thing is, all the high performance sedans seem to cost upwards of 30k, and so they've become a luxury item. There are some exceptions (accord, altima, maz6, etc...maintsteam family sedan), but the higher performance sedans still cost a pretty penny.

Coupes aren't dead though. Atleast not with Imports.

What I find amusing is all the young kids in 4 door cars. I don't know...I never had a problem shoving someone in the back of my '89 Camaro. They didn't like it once they were back there, but at least they were stuck there :)

I'm 23, and I don't have the slightest use for a 4 door. I can see with a family, so be it. But I had no problem taking my girlfriend and my parents to dinner last night in the GP. There's more than enough room in a car that size.

Maybe I'm a traditionalist (actually, I KNOW I am), but to me, a 2 door car just plain looks better, and lends a more "youthful" appearance. I can see no 2 door Regal, or Intrigue...but a Grand Prix???? C'mon....sure the Monte is out there. But not everyone wants to have to buy a Monte if they want a big 2 door. I know I don't. Pontiac is about young and performance. Killing the 2 door GP was a big error...

I can see a company like Nissan not having a Maxima coupe...their buyers never had the option. But trust me, from my experiences on the sales floor, people expected to walk into the showroom and see a nicely styled Pontiac large coupe.

And no one can tell me the GTO is an adequate replacement for the average $25,000 V6 buyer :rolleyes: If Pontiac was afraid of overlap, then they should have made the 2 cars look more different then!!

Because a BMW 330i sedan behaves like a sports car, has a big trunk, and has an accessible back seat. You can drive it like a sports car and still take another couple out to dinner in comfort without having to open a long door and fiddle with a seat back. The sports sedan has killed the coupe/2 door sedan.