Over the last 30 years I’ve bought many cars of very different kinds, from my nimble (but tight) Miata to a great boat-like Ford Granada. But I find myself returning to one particular style: the two-door 2+2 sporty coupe. I tend to blame this on my exposure at an impressionable (adolescent) age to the first racing Mustangs to arrive in England. In any case, I’ve owned three of them: the Ford Probe, the Mercury Cougar, and now the Hyundai Genesis Coupe. What’s interesting is that I enjoyed each of these cars immensely, but each was (is) a commercial failure.
The Probe was a Ford derivative of the Mazda MX-6, which was a fairly successful model for the Japanese company. The car went through one major and one minor refresh before it disappeared. I bought the second version, drove it for years without any problems, and eventually passed it on to my daughter. Was it a failure? It didn’t sell very well, and while “Probe” was a new model name for Ford, they haven’t re-used it. I think part of the problem was that the top-of-the-line Probe was too close to the Mustang in capability, and they couldn’t figure out how to handle the positioning.
The Mercury Cougar was launched with great fanfare, as one of the first of a new “edgy” style from Ford. Mechanically it was fairly close to the Probe, which wasn’t a bad thing. I bought one within weeks of the release, and I really liked it. Unfortunately it was rear-ended by a hulking SUV as we were leaving a funeral in 2002, and in spite of extensive repairs it never felt quite right after that. Commercially it was a complete disaster. Mercury did one minor refresh (NACA scoops on the hood!) and then killed it. I’m convinced that the biggest problem was that although “Mercury Cougar” revived the name of a legendary muscle car, Ford had successfully repositioned the Mercury brand as a soft, luxury brand for older buyers. As WikiPedia puts it:
This new generation was aimed at younger buyers, but was sold alongside Sables and Grand Marquis which were marketed toward middle aged buyers. Also, Mercury salesmen did not know how to properly market the car, as they were used to interacting with older customers.
To confuse things further, they tried to sell it in Europe as the “Ford Cougar”.
So to my present car, the Hyundai Genesis Coupe. I really love this car, and so did almost all of the reviewers. It simply blows away the present Mustang and Camaro. So why hasn’t it sold? I see very few of these cars around, and the poor sales are a frequent topic on automobile forums. Yes, it’s a bit too heavy at 3,300 lbs., but frankly most cars that are comfortable on the SFO-LAX haul are going to have that kind of weight. And 306 BHP with RWD means that I can mostly forget about the weight and size while I thrash around the Santa Cruz Mountains. The problem isn’t engineering, but marketing. Over at The Truth About Cars, Michael Karesh nailed it:
The coupe shares its name — but little else — with the Genesis sedan. The two cars don’t look alike. They don’t drive alike. They’re much different in size and price. So, “Genesis” is bound to be associated with the characteristics of one or the other, or neither, but certainly not both. In this case, the sedan arrived first and so got dibs. If people happen to hear that there is a Genesis coupe, they’re likely to assume it’s larger, more luxurious, and more expensive than it actually is.
So there you have it. Three fine cars, all of which have been commercial failures, mostly because of dumb marketing. I could try to spin it as “exclusive, discerning”, but it’s actually rather frustrating. Oh, well.