by atomathics » Thu Dec 02, 2010 4:03 am
[quote="FutureAtom"]
Are many of the options very overpriced?
I hope I don't get flamed bad here, but in my opinion buying a new Ariel Atom is overpriced for what it is. I mean, it is a track only car. To get the options that you really need for this car you are looking at between 65K to 70K. They really hit you up for the options. I don't really know what is involved in building one of these, so I can be totally wrong here. But it looks like I will be leaning towards a Used ariel atom.
I think this car NEW should be almost maxed with options for around 50K-55K. To better prove my point and obviously what many other buyers think, the last maxed out ariel atom 2 on ebay only bid up to 41K. It seems obvious that buyers just do not see the high value in these cars.
I think that TMI will have to also lower the price of the options they offer, not just drop the base price of the car. Again, this is my opinion and I can be wrong here as I do not know what is involved.
[/quote]
Hi, FutureAtom:
Well, you have to consider the market.
First, look at that spoiler on the ebay link. It mounts on the G35 and the 350Z. According to the internet (it is, therefore, true), these are the production numbers for the 350Z over a three-year span:
2002 – 13,253
2003 – 36,728
2004 – 30,690
Nissan continued to make this car for another four years, until 2008. Just in terms of 350Zs, the people that designed that ebay spoiler have, easily, more than 100,000 potential customers, probably more than 200,000 if you count the G35 crowd, too.
In North America, I don't believe there are more than 200 Atoms and not much more than 1,500 on the planet. So you're dealing with a fantastically small market size and the R&D costs for a product (like a wing) don't usually scale downwards just because the market is tiny. And, I'd imagine, customer expectations for the finished product here are higher than for the mass-market, which puts upward pressure on the finish quality. Then you've got to look at the people selling these small-market accessories. They have overhead and, simply, they have to make a living selling a tiny number of high-end parts to a small, finicky audience. Translation, it's expensive, all of it.
Now, if you're really handy, with access to machining tools, CF fabrication supplies, etc., you can do it, but honestly add up the time it takes for your R&D and fabrication on an hourly basis, plus the cost of the machines and supplies, factor in the reject ratio and wastage, then try to get, at best, 30 owners to buy your product.
About the price of the car in general, you do realize it's a hand-built, custom vehicle, right? No robots, no sophisticated supply-chain management, no assembly line. On either side of the ocean, it's basically a few guys in a shed (nice sheds) making one of the craziest high-performance vehicles available today. The fact that it even exists is amazing and the market for it is fantastically small because it demands sacrifice. So again, it becomes more expensive.
Certainly on paper it may not look like it tallys, and from a distance it's easy to shoot holes in the argument for Atom pricing. "I could weld that in my backyard", "If you add up all the parts, it doesn't come close to what they're asking", "It's insanely overpriced for what you get."
Reading your posts, I can't tell if you've driven an Atom or been a passenger in one. If neither are the case, you should really try to do so before making the value/price judgement. I can't imagine any vehicle matching the psychotic mainline adrenaline hit that an Atom does for anything near the price, whether the Atom is new or used.
These are miraculous, thrilling little machines and I'd think most here would say they're worth every single cold hard penny.
[quote="FutureAtom"]
Are many of the options very overpriced?
I hope I don't get flamed bad here, but in my opinion buying a new Ariel Atom is overpriced for what it is. I mean, it is a track only car. To get the options that you really need for this car you are looking at between 65K to 70K. They really hit you up for the options. I don't really know what is involved in building one of these, so I can be totally wrong here. But it looks like I will be leaning towards a Used ariel atom.
I think this car NEW should be almost maxed with options for around 50K-55K. To better prove my point and obviously what many other buyers think, the last maxed out ariel atom 2 on ebay only bid up to 41K. It seems obvious that buyers just do not see the high value in these cars.
I think that TMI will have to also lower the price of the options they offer, not just drop the base price of the car. Again, this is my opinion and I can be wrong here as I do not know what is involved.
[/quote]
Hi, FutureAtom:
Well, you have to consider the market.
First, look at that spoiler on the ebay link. It mounts on the G35 and the 350Z. According to the internet (it is, therefore, true), these are the production numbers for the 350Z over a three-year span:
2002 – 13,253
2003 – 36,728
2004 – 30,690
Nissan continued to make this car for another four years, until 2008. Just in terms of 350Zs, the people that designed that ebay spoiler have, easily, more than 100,000 potential customers, probably more than 200,000 if you count the G35 crowd, too.
In North America, I don't believe there are more than 200 Atoms and not much more than 1,500 on the planet. So you're dealing with a fantastically small market size and the R&D costs for a product (like a wing) don't usually scale downwards just because the market is tiny. And, I'd imagine, customer expectations for the finished product here are higher than for the mass-market, which puts upward pressure on the finish quality. Then you've got to look at the people selling these small-market accessories. They have overhead and, simply, they have to make a living selling a tiny number of high-end parts to a small, finicky audience. Translation, it's expensive, all of it.
Now, if you're really handy, with access to machining tools, CF fabrication supplies, etc., you can do it, but honestly add up the time it takes for your R&D and fabrication on an hourly basis, plus the cost of the machines and supplies, factor in the reject ratio and wastage, then try to get, at best, 30 owners to buy your product.
About the price of the car in general, you do realize it's a [u]hand-built[/u], custom vehicle, right? No robots, no sophisticated supply-chain management, no assembly line. On either side of the ocean, it's basically a few guys in a shed (nice sheds) making one of the craziest high-performance vehicles available today. The fact that it even exists is amazing and the market for it is fantastically small because it demands sacrifice. So again, it becomes more expensive.
Certainly on paper it may not look like it tallys, and from a distance it's easy to shoot holes in the argument for Atom pricing. "I could weld that in my backyard", "If you add up all the parts, it doesn't come close to what they're asking", "It's insanely overpriced for what you get."
Reading your posts, I can't tell if you've driven an Atom or been a passenger in one. If neither are the case, you should really try to do so before making the value/price judgement. I can't imagine any vehicle matching the psychotic mainline adrenaline hit that an Atom does for anything near the price, whether the Atom is new or used.
These are miraculous, thrilling little machines and I'd think most here would say they're worth every single cold hard penny.