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Lexus IS C |
Despite being down 6.5% through the first third of the year, Volvo C70 sales shot up 71.6% in April 2011. After staring at the terribly unattractive roof arrangement of a Lexus IS C outside the grocery store yesterday, the first representative I could think of for positive hardtop convertible roofing was the Volvo C70. 695 fortunate new owners now get to enjoy the C70's beautifully integrated top for the foreseeable future.While not a big volume car like the Chevrolet Camaro or Ford Mustang, the C70 was far less of a niche player than the Audi TT, BMW Z4, or Mercedes-Benz SLK last month. Sales of those three German vehicles totalled 648, 47 fewer than the single Swede's output. There are a handful of convertibles not featured in GoodCarBadCar.net's sporty car charts because their sales are rolled into one figure: BMW's 3-Series coupe and hardtop convertible, Trollhättan's $45,080 2011 Saab 9-3 Convertible, and the Lexus IS C are three examples. The C70 was Volvo's fourth-best-selling nameplate in the U.S. in April, trailing the S60, XC60, and XC90.
Lexus, BMW, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz all offer higher-end options for heavily-walleted customers; Volvo does not and has no plans to. An overly simplified profit calculator would say that Audi sold 201 TTs in April and, assuming every TT sold was a base model, Audi took in $7,698,300 in TT-based revenue. Audi also sold 114 R8s. Now assume every R8 sold was a "basic" $115,200 V8 coupe. From the R8, Audi would have taken in $13,018,800. Sounds tasty. Then again, Audi sold 1437 A5s. Even if all the 5s sold were standard A5s and not well-optioned S5s, Audi's revenue from that product line totals $53,025,300.
A5/S5 sales fell 22.2% in April. Sales of the R8 shot up 178%. TT sales declined by six units. The R8 remains no match for the Porsche 911, up 65.8% in April, nor was it much competition for the suddenly reinvigorated $89,950 2012 Nissan GT-R, which posted a 143.4% year-over-year increase. As a whole, the Audi brand was up 7.5% as America's sixth-ranked luxury brand.