As the title says.

Here are my three thoughts...

a.) Coupe buyers typically care about image. For a while..I saw a lot of people who typically would be driving a fashionable coupe rolling around buy themselves in a massive SUV. Quite simply for a while it was cool to drive an SUV.

b.) When a family owns a coupe it is typically a second, or third car. However over the last 15 years, the family sedan, wagon, or minivan that mom drives got replaced with a $35-50K SUV. The cost of the SUV vs. a normal car, and the cost of gas for it kept many family's from being able to afford a second, or most likely third car.

c.) Less coupes are offered now because companies like GM threw every dime they had at making SUV's.


So now that it is pretty much uncool to own anything but a cute ute, and the Camaro is GM's best selling vehicle..are we poised for a come back?

 

I hope so.

I know several single people that drive large SUVs, and I always wonder why when I see them driving, no family, no reason to have a vehicle like that. Trucks are huge around here to. Most people would rather have a truck than a 2-door car. And its considered cool to have a big modded HD Diesel truck too. Even though most will never tow anything with them. Its crazy and I don't understand how all this got started. In the 70s large luxury coupes were the thing. In the 80s performance made a come back and so did pony cars and smaller coupes. I remember in the 80s GM made a 2-door version of just about every passenger car they made. Then in the 90s performance got even better and bottom dropped out of the coupe market and trucks and SUVs took over.

 

My Dad has been driving Suburbans almost exclusively for more than 10 years. He could drive ANY production vehicle available, but he keeps buying Suburbans. Sure, sometimes he'll take out his impala SS, Corvette, or my Mom's S Class Benz, but he simply likes Suburbans more. He has told me many times that his current one is the best vehicle he has ever owned.

My wife and I both love driving my truck. It doesn't ride as well as her impala. It doesn't handle as well as her impala. Throttle response is not as good as her impala (though the truck does have more power.) It has cloth bench seats with a column shifter vs nicer leather buckets with console shifter. Visibility and parking suck in compared to the car. Fuel economy is about 50% better in the car. And we rarely use it as a truck (when we have, it has been a life saver!) But we both prefer driving and riding in the truck when we go anywhere. The truck has more room inside. It sits higher up and that is nice to have (though I also like sitting real low to the ground in a sporty car.) It is nice to not have to worry about bad roads, potholes, tree limbs in the road, deep puddles of water, or having any problems if a little off-pavement driving is required. Plus the sound of a V8 is a LOT better than a V6

 

d.) No coupes worth having over the last 20 years, pony cars excluded.

 

Methinks the subaru WRX and the bitchubishi EVO were the final nails in the cool coupes coffin. They were both low 13 second cars that cost $30k, but they were both 4 door for some reason. Every other car company tried to make sporty sedans to suck off of the STI/EVO popularity, and gave up on the sport coupe. I also blame pontiac for not bringing out a GTP coupe in 2004.

Now, the coupe market is a shadow of it's former self. Nissan is working hard to ressurect coupes with the Z and the altima, but who would buy those. Camaro/mustang/challenger are obvious choices, but those always were and always will be coupes.

THe intermediate coupe, such at the T-bird or GTP, are gone. I thought the G6 coupe was cool, but it flopped.

 

Modern sedans have been styled very sporty.

 

+1 more.

The Mustang was the most liveable and affordable and available and thus always sold VERY well.

The other coupes were either posers... such as Monte Carlo, or way out of reasonable affordability such as BMW's or the like.

 

how was a monte carlo a "poser"?

 

I'd been trying to find a decent priced Monte Carlo for years.......I'm not sure how it's a poser when the GTP isn't considered one

Please note.....I may be biased.....everything I own has 2 doors

 

My personal theory as to why the coupe market went in to the crapper boils down to this: Airbags.

Airbags? Yes. Airbags. Once they put them in, you had to put your kids in the back seat, NO EXCEPTIONS! Suddenly, owning a two door car became a lot more of a pain in the *** for people with children.

Coupes were a significant part of the auto market for decades, but mysteriously disappeared around the same time airbags showed up. hmm..

Still, it would be nice if they made some effort to make them a little more usable for people with children. For example, GM had these neat seatbelts that had the retractors built into the seats, rather than the b-pillars. In coupes, this would be great as you'd be able to get into the back seat without getting hung up in the front seat belts. Not surprisingly, GM never put these types of belts in a 2-door car.

 

Wrong wheel drive and non-V8 for most years.

 

weren't people always supposed to put kids in the back seat?

So is the Cobalt turbo SS and Camaro V6 for posers? coupe has nothing to do with drive wheels or engine.

 

I think much of the move to sedans has to do with utility when there's a bigger need to utilize the back seat.

Whether it's people with a child or folk wanting to easily give more than one passenger a ride, the market went there.

Even with pick-ups the demand was for at least an extended cab over a regular cab. Crew cab buyers were once stictly construction or commercial buyers. That has changed too.

Look at what it takes to interest folks in a Crossover, 7 or 8 seats is a big must have.

Coupes are preferred by those that see their vehicle as either personal driving or a driver and significant other passenger. When folk get into the backseat, coupe owners are more likely to figure, "If you need a ride from me, you will have to work you way back there".

A desire to make it easier for others to ride is almost all of the reason the taste has gone that way...

 

Coupes are just a pain in the ***...plain and simple. I have owned 2-door cars for the past 15 years, and now I have a child. Although there is plenty of room in the back of the GTO, it is a chore to get her in and out of it.

Hell, even when I was single, it was always a chore if more than one passenger wanted to ride with me. With a sedan, they can just pile in. Add that with the fact that sedans are styled very well these days (G8), and I'm pretty much over my coupe buying days.

 

And there you have it...