Turbo Boost

By Daren Fonda/Dallas

Shopping for a new sports car over the summer, David Beverly found plenty of choices, at attractive prices. Hunting for a sexy machine under $40,000, he surveyed vehicles ranging from Detroit's muscle cars to newer models by Audi, BMW and Honda. What really caught his eye was Nissan's sizzling new two-seater, the 350Z. A mortgage banker from Austin, Texas, Beverly loved its specs: a powerful engine, modern design, solid engineering and a price around $36,000, with all the trimmings. After reading raves about the vehicle, he says, "I knew I had to have it."

Automakers are gambling that the sports-car bug will spread. After a long drought, more than a dozen such vehicles, from midpriced roadsters like the Audi TT ($33,000) to luxury rockers such as Porsche's 911 GT2 ($182,000), now preen and pose in showrooms. Since 1995, sports-car sales have risen more than 50%, to about 100,000 this year, and are forecast to grow an additional 60% by 2007. While the overall market for two-seaters is limp right now--it's the kind of purchase that people postpone in an uncertain economy--automakers have their reasons for rolling out new models, including next year's Chrysler Crossfire and Mazda RX-8.

Carmakers have two demographic groups in their headlights: Gen-X car buffs like Beverly, 31--an unmarried professional with no children--and the expanding ranks of baby boomers who can afford a two-seater now that their kids have grown up. Though sports-car sales account for just 1% of total vehicle spending, automakers view the eye-catching cars as a vital way to give a gleam to their brands, enhancing the image of an otherwise utilitarian fleet and luring shoppers into showrooms. Done right, two-seaters make money too. Outfitted with luxury fixings, they often yield hefty profit margins.

Since the early '90s, foreign carmakers have raised the stakes in the sports-car game by doing a better job of marrying comfort with performance and style. This year Nissan crammed a 287-h.p. engine into its 350Z and outfitted it with luxuries like heated seats and a premium audio system. BMW's new Z4 is loaded with power and gadgetry and features a body crafted to evoke a flame, part of BMW's bid to embolden its designs.

For the consumer, getting this combination of performance and styling used to cost at least $50,000--often $100,000 or more for the likes of a high-end Porsche. Comparable vehicles now sell for less than $40,000, a pricing sweet spot that is expanding the market. Says Donald Kaufmann, 52, an insurance agent in Baton Rouge, La., who just bought the new Nissan: "I felt I was getting a lot of car for the dollar." Since Honda introduced its S2000 in 1999, sales of the $35,000 roadster have jumped nearly threefold. Mazda's Miata, introduced in 1989, is still purring along, with around 15,000 sold each year. Though Chevy's Corvette celebrates its 50th birthday next year, it still accounts for a third of all U.S. sports-car sales, and with its price pushing $50,000, it turns a nice profit for GM.

But, as automakers have learned, building a hot sports car is no Sunday drive. The vehicles are tricky to get right, requiring greater attention to design, engineering and marketing. Even specialists such as Porsche and BMW can't stay on cruise control. Although Porsche last week reported record profits, powered by sales of its 911 Turbo, competition facing its entry-level Boxster ($45,000-plus) contributed to a 21% falloff in sales for the vehicle. A redesign is expected by 2004.

BMW's Z3 sold briskly when it debuted in 1996, but sales have plummeted more than 50% in the past three years. "The Z3 got old and tired," says Alan Baum, an auto-industry analyst with the Planning Edge in Farmington Hills, Mich. The car developed a reputation for being tough to drive and was not enticing enough to men, who are the main buyers of sports cars. "The Z4 is a more athletic and substantive car," says Hennie Chung, BMW's product manager for the vehicle. Yet its reception illustrates critics' fussiness when evaluating roadsters. "The car's proportions are perplexing," wrote Dan Neil in an otherwise positive review in the New York Times. "The Z4 has derriere issues," giving it the look of "a salamander with a broken tail."

The risks of producing sports cars are so high that a weakened Detroit is treading cautiously compared with its foreign rivals. Having seen their combined share of the U.S. car market drop to 47%, from 65% in 1992, and in the midst of multiyear turnaround plans, Chrysler, Ford and GM argue that siphoning resources from their most profitable product lines--trucks and SUVs--would be foolish. "It's a question of priorities," says Chris Theodore, Ford's vice president for North American product development. "Nobody here says you can't build a two-seater, but it comes down to making the business case." The automaker is banking on its retro-styled Thunderbird, rumbling Mustangs and the upcoming Mazda RX-8 (Ford owns 36% of Mazda) to hang on to its sports-car credibility. Few of Ford's top designers and engineers, however, are working on them. Says J Mays, vice president of design: "A lot of our top talent goes into trucks."

The situation is similar at GM, though it will launch a Cadillac two-seater (price: an estimated $80,000) and a combo roadster-truck, the Chevrolet SSR, both for next year. Producing a sports car in the sub-$40,000 segment is not part of GM's public plans, at least not yet. While the prototype of its Pontiac Solstice was a hit with critics at auto shows, GM has not said whether the car will be produced.

Part of Detroit's reluctance stems from years of neglect of the car market. Most of Detroit's cars rest on dated front-wheel-drive platforms (the car's foundation), which can't be easily re-engineered into sports cars. To make its Crossfire, Chrysler modified a platform that its sister brand, Mercedes-Benz, is phasing out. Foreign automakers have rolled out profitable models partly because they spent decades investing in platforms that can flex: Audi's TT sits on a modified Golf platform; BMW's Z4 started out with a 3-Series bed.

Although Nissan is recording strong orders for the 350Z, it's too early to tell whether the car will drive showroom traffic and sales of other vehicles. "It's bringing us a wider range of buyers," says Kevin Worfe, a Nissan dealer in Austin, "but we aren't seeing the effects on volume yet." For new owners, however, the car seems to be performing robustly. David Beverly says he got into a race last week with a BMW, clocking 115 m.p.h. before backing off. "I'm not 18 anymore," he says, "but it was heart-throbbing." --With reporting by Joseph R. Szczesny/Detroit

With reporting by Joseph R. Szczesny/Detroit