"Niche cars" are usually a disaster for manufacturers and 4S stores. Due to the small market demand, it is often difficult to escape the fate of clearing the warehouse and selling and delisting. But after these "niche cars" are delisted, because the demand in the market has not decreased, the result is that these niche used cars with unique product power will instantly turn into hot fragrant food. And the 11 cars that appeared today are new cars that no one wants, and the retention rate of used cars is comparable to the representative of the hegemony!
Second generation beetles
As the most influential model in the world in the 20th century, along with the Ford Model T, Mini, and Citroën DS, the original Volkswagen Beetle generated a total of more than 20 million units from its rollout in 1938 to its complete discontinuation in 2003. In order to continue the classic, Volkswagen introduced the second generation of the Beetle in 1998. Although this generation of Beetle used the front-facing front-drive PQ34 platform that Volkswagen built for the A-class car at that time, losing the characteristics of the original rear-mounted rear-drive, its rounded style can still make people see at a glance that it is a "Beetle"!
The second generation of Beetles then entered the country, and the price was as high as more than 300,000 yuan... With its cute appearance, this car still captured the favor of some rich young ladies. But for the domestic market in the early 2000s, such an uninhabitable space and price also doomed the car to become the fate of a very small number of rich people's playthings.
Third generation beetle
In 2012, the Beetle ushered in a change of generation, and the third generation of the Beetle became more tough under the premise of retaining the classic characteristics. This more "neutral" design is probably also to avoid the classic model of "Beetle" from becoming narrower and narrower in the new era, and eventually becoming exclusive to female users. In terms of pricing, due to the launch of the 1.2T model, the starting price of the third-generation Beetle in China has also dropped to 200,000. But because the car is not much different from the golf in its early 100,000s in other ways except for the appearance, the Beetles still failed to make friends with sensible Chinese consumers.
In order to reverse the dilemma, volkswagen is not without thought of remedial measures. After discovering that this generation of models was as unpopular as the previous generation of Beetles, imported Volkswagen gave a lot of concessions, such as the original price of 210,000 1.2T models at that time only needed about 150,000 to buy. Even in 2019, when Volkswagen announced the suspension of the Beetle series and the domestic preparation for delisting and inventory clearance, a 1.4T high-end model with a price tag price of 250,000 only needed 140,000 to be sold.
Logically, such a model that can only rely on crazy discounts and selling at the end of its life will obviously not have a high retention rate. But when the Beetle is completely delisted, whether it is a 1.2T 180TSI model or a 1.4T 280TSI, its second-hand car price is directly higher than the new car transaction price at that time! Nowadays, the price of the second-hand Beetles that are about 3 years old on the market is also more expensive than the price after the new car discount that year, which is equivalent to the owner of the car for free for a few years and can earn some money... It seems that the appearance and feelings are really priceless!
In September 2013, Dongfeng Honda used the chassis of the 9th Generation Civic to create a jade that can be called a hatchback, or a station wagon, or an MPV... The 4660mm body length with the wheelbase of 2760mm makes this car, which does not know what category it belongs to, not only has a huge rear space, but also has a depth of 990mm in the back box. For comparison, the vault depth of the Golf 7 of the same period was only 745mm. It is also thanks to this trunk space that Jed has also "willfully" launched a 6-seat version with a 2+2+2 layout in addition to the normal 5-seat version.
6-seat Jed
With the huge space advantage, the classic leather 1.8L engine and the minimum price of 150,000 yuan, it is reasonable to say that Jed's sales should not be too bad. However, the market has slapped Dongfeng Honda's face hard, not only the 6-seat version of the model has not been bought at all, but also the average monthly sales of all the Jed models are only about 5,000 units. Although this "special car" was subsequently successfully sold back to the Japanese market, unfortunately, this news did not boost Jed's sales in China.
Due to sales that are less than expected, Dongfeng Honda has gradually given a preferential margin of 20,000-30,000 yuan, but the market response is still general, in 2019 after 6 years of listing, Jed's sales have gradually declined to the level of hundreds of units per month. As a result, Dongfeng Honda insisted on carrying it for another 2 years, and officially stopped Jade's production line in January 2021. Then something interesting happened, this Honda car with huge space inside has gone all the way up in the used car market, and used cars with 4 or 5 years of age can sell for an average of 100,000-120,000 yuan. To know that this second-hand price is not much cheaper than the new car after the original discount, which is already very outrageous for a "special car" without historical feelings.
For the Land Rover brand, the Discovery series has always been its housekeeping product, and its excellent off-road capabilities, coupled with a relatively luxurious interior and classic boxy shape, make it popular with Chinese consumers. After all, for most people's cognition, an off-road vehicle should look like this.
However, in 2016, when Land Rover Discovery 4 was replaced, the Discovery 5 directly abandoned the original non-carrier body, making it questionable by players in terms of off-road performance. Considering that the vast majority of consumers who buy off-road vehicles are actually used in the city, the change in body form seems harmless. What really makes the Discovery 5 wind review show a one-sided trend is actually the appearance of this car.
If it is forgivable to find the front face and the overall silhouette of the 5 in order to synchronize the more luxurious family design at that time, but this design in order to continue to find the asymmetrical rear of the car series is not something that ordinary people can appreciate... So even if you go to a foreign website, the above global car fans have basically given an "Ugly" evaluation of this forced crooked design.
So when it was found that 5 was listed in China not long ago, the official gave a huge discount of nearly 200,000 yuan. This also means that a minimum matching 5 with a list price of 800,000 can be bought with only about 600,000. What is more interesting is that at that time, after the discovery of 5 in China, there was a batch of inventory cars that found 4 that were not sold out, and as a result, Land Rover's 4S store appeared to find 5 discounts of 200,000 sales, and discovery 4 was sold according to the original price of 800,000 fantasy scenes...
When the time comes to the end of 2020, after the implementation of China VI emissions, only the discovery 4 that meets the national V emissions will naturally be forced to delist. So those who don't look at discovery 5, prefer to find 4 consumers can only go to the second-hand car market to look for cars. This situation of more monks and less meat has also directly led to the rise in the price of 4 second-hand discoveries, and even after the last batch of inventory cars has been driven for tens of thousands of kilometers, it can still sell close to 800,000 new cars... What is even more unexpected is that today, after the implementation of The National VI emissions for 2 years, those who are licensed at the end of the National V period and use the 3.0L V6 supercharged engine are still more expensive than the 3.0T after the discount of 600,000.
Although Ruizhi has the unique V6 naturally aspirated + rear-wheel drive in the same class, whether it is the first generation listed in China in October 2005 or the second generation listed in September 2010, the sales of this car have never been any surprises, basically maintained at the level of 4000-5000 units / month. Later, with the popularity of turbocharged engines, the 2.5L V6 self-priming 193 horsepower was not enough to see, so Ruizhi only had about 1,000 units left in a single month around 2014.
In the face of such dismal sales, FAW Toyota has not struggled, by giving more than 40,000 yuan of preferential treatment, so that the price of most of Ruizhi's naked cars has fallen within 200,000 yuan. But even so, Ruizhi's sales have not been able to see an improvement, which seems to prove that those who miss the "large displacement self-absorption" on the Internet all day long are just talking... In the end, the "big super" had no choice but to officially stop production in September 2017...
But what is interesting is that I don't know whether it is because there have been more people who have followed the trend in the past two years, or whether the young keyboard man who played on the Internet has grown up to buy a car, and the number of people who have begun to buy second-hand Ruizhi has gradually increased. Because the supply and demand relationship determines the price, the price of the second-hand "big super" has begun to be continuously raised by the second-hand car dealers, so that now a 6-year-old car, nearly 100,000 kilometers of Ruizhi, can sell for 160,000-180,000 prices... To know that the horsepower next door is greater, or the luxury brand of Cadillac ATS only needs 13-15 million ah...
As the twin brother of Toyota Ruizhi, Lexus GS also ushered in the "highlight moment" of his life after the suspension of production. Before the suspension of production, because the model positioning of GS was higher than that of ES and IS, the starting price of this "shell" Ruizhi in China was directly set at 450,000. You know, whether it is the same powertrain, just one size smaller than the GS IS, or the positioning is lower, but the interior space is more spacious ES, their starting price is cheaper than the GS is 100,000 pieces, which really makes the GS look a little awkward.
In the case of price and space are not dominant, coupled with its own sports attributes are flat, in the end, Lexus GS has sold relatively dismal in various regions of the world. Faced with this dilemma, Toyota finally decided to stop production of the Lexus GS in August 2020. As an imported model, the GS has naturally stopped selling in China.
As we all know, Lexus with excellent quality and workmanship, the retention rate in the second-hand market has always been very amazing, and the GS as a niche car is even more so. After the global suspension of GS production, the retention rate of this "hull" Ruizhi has gone all the way up, and the second-hand price of the GS300 F Sport model in about 3 years is about 400,000, compared with the price of the new car of 456,000, its 3-year retention rate has reached a staggering 88%!
For a good small steel cannon, in addition to having strong power and fast enough lap speed, it is also necessary to bring the driver a driving pleasure that can be called "enjoyment". Examples include the flexible rear, sharp steering, and a manual transmission that allows the driver to shift gears entirely by working together with his hands and feet. Coincidentally, the Fox RS, which was imported into The country for sale in 2016, has all of the above elements!
The 2.3T engine provides the Fox RS with a surging 350 horsepower, and the blessing of the four-wheel drive system gives it the strength to break 100 in 5.1 seconds. In addition, thanks to the unique rear axle gear ratio setting, this steel gun based on the front-drive chassis and with a transverse engine even has the ability to deliver 70% of the power to the rear wheels, creating a "drift mode" rare in the steel gun world! This means that if you own a Fox RS, you can enjoy the thrill of brushing the track while also enjoying the thrill of the tires smoking! More importantly, in the steel cannon market where competitors use automatic transmissions, the Fox RS 6-speed manual transmission is even more "killer", after all, in the face of the fun of shifting, the shift speed is not worth mentioning!
Unfortunately, the Fox RS is close to the price of 400,000, slower than the 5.05 seconds of the Golf R, Audi S3, Mercedes-Benz A45, which is 4 seconds club players, and the manual gearbox with a threshold is doomed to not achieve too good sales. Interestingly, when fox RS was forced to delist due to poor domestic sales, this steel cannon that was once unpopular turned over! The second-hand price has risen directly from 300,000 to a small 400,000 that is the same as the new car! And with the increase of years and mileage, the price of the second-hand market has not loosened at all! Such a terrible retention rate is unprecedented for a Ford in the Chinese market!
Also having the same experience as the Fox RS is the Audi RS3, which went on sale in 2017. As the top Audi "steel cannon" model that many fans were looking forward to at the time, the unique 2.5T inline five-cylinder engine gave the car 400 horsepower, 480 Nm and 4.1 seconds to break the hundred. However, due to the lack of brand confidence, the higher price brought by the 2.5T displacement, and the vehicle handling that is not as good as the Mercedes-Benz A45, the RS3 did not achieve the expected sales. Therefore, after maintaining the original price sales for a year, Audi, which could not hold on, offered RS3 a discount of about 50,000 yuan, reducing the price of its bare car from the original 510,000 to 460,000.
However, even if the RS3 discount has reached almost the same price range as the Mercedes-Benz AMG A45, there are still not many people who choose RS3, which eventually leads to the high-performance "steel cannon" that Audi has high hopes for can only leave the market, and said that the next generation of RS3 will not land in the Chinese market before the mid-term redesign.
However, not long after the Audi RS3 was delisted, the second-hand price of this car began to rise. Even now, a 3-year-old, normal number of kilometers RS3, its second-hand price is maintained between 450,000-550,000, and the new car price after the preferential treatment that year is no different, equivalent to the owner of the car for 3 years, only pay a purchase tax...
As The first car for Alfa Romeo to return to China, the Giulia, with its excellent suspension calibration, has shown the complete opposite characteristics of the 3, 4 and C, which are mainly home-based and sports-supplemented models, and have become the well-deserved driver's car in the B-class. Unfortunately, for the vast majority of Chinese consumers who do not understand the culture and history of automobiles, the brand of Alfa Romeo is too unfamiliar. So even if Giulia has excellent product power, it still can't escape the fate of dismal sales.
To make matters worse, in mid-2018, the state officially announced that the country will enter the national VI emissions in 2019. As soon as this news came out, Alfa Romeo, who was not sold by a bunch of National V emission Giulia at that time, directly panicked. In order to digest these National V inventory cars as soon as possible and avoid the problem of not being able to be licensed in 2019, in November 2018, the 200HP model with an original price of 319,800 yuan directly began to be "sold cheaply" at a price of 200,000 yuan.
Many consumers who are in the spirit of "not picking up the cheap is a loss" rushed to the 4S, and they were even more happy after the test drive, so they swiped the card car on the spot to help Alfa Romeo digest the inventory. But the Italian car is still an Italian car after all, today the tire pressure alarm, tomorrow the window can not go up, the day after tomorrow the whole car can not catch fire, every day seems to have a "surprise" waiting for these unprepared Giulia owners. Just when these new owners were overwhelmed, the market suddenly appeared dawn! Since Alfa Romeo canceled the Giulia 200HP version after the China 5 special offer, the starting price of Giulia directly increased from the previous 320,000 to 380,000! The 200HP Giulia in the second-hand market has also jumped in the new car market! After seeing that they can get rid of it without losing money, many owners of 200HP Giulia who bought 200HP Giulia for only 200,000 yuan chose to sell their cars and leave the market because of the "cheap sale" of China 5.
What they did not expect was that two years later, the 200HP Giulia can still sell for about 200,000 yuan with its appearance that is not much different from the new model, its outstanding driving experience and its power performance that is not much weaker than the 280HP, after all, this car is still tempting to sell for nearly 150,000 yuan cheaper than the current 280HP landing. This is also equivalent to the owner who bought 200HP at a low price at that time, if he waited until today to sell it, it was equivalent to opening for 2 years. This is simply an incomprehensible thing for a brand with a less than ideal quality and a very average retention rate.
With the appearance of the first two generations of models, CLS has become the "most beautiful Mercedes- and" in the eyes of most people, with elegant and smooth body lines, so that many people worship under its skirt. Among them, the most distinctive feature of the CLS car series is the hunting version known as spitting Brake. The widely downward window line and the European touring body give it a leopard-like sporty feel, as well as the modesty and elegance of an evening dress. It is reasonable to say that this unique temperament should be spared by Mercedes-Benz, but the new CLS released in 2018 has turned into a ferocious design language that fights with others, and the light group shape of "skull eyebrow rat eyes" has also become the object of everyone's complaints.
Therefore, when the new CLS was released, the second-hand car price of the previous generation of CLS opened the overall upward momentum, and the largest increase was the CLS hunting version. The main reason behind this is that the new generation of CLS hunting version models will not be introduced into China. In the current second-hand car market, a CLS hunting version that has been open for 7 years and originally cost more than 900,000 yuan can still be sold to about 500,000. It is equivalent to its 7-year retention rate of about 55%! What you know is that in the Mercedes-Benz car series, in addition to the Mercedes-Benz G-Class that can put the sister, there has never been a car that can have such an exaggerated retention rate!
As a Mazda known as "Toei BMW", almost all of its models have excellent handling. Among them, the control of the MX-5 civilian sports car is even more "classic". Although it is only paired with a 2.0L 158 hp small engine, the 3.9-meter, 1.1-ton lightweight body, coupled with the rear-wheel drive layout form, gives the MX-5 the same driving experience as a high-level sports car, and the smart rear and slightly irritable power output make this car quite stylish.
Therefore, when the fourth-generation MX-5 was released overseas, many domestic consumers hoped that this civilian sports car could come to China like the previous generation. After hearing the fans' cries, Mazda introduced 500 fourth-generation MX-5 NDs in November 2017. Unfortunately, the price of nearly 350,000 yuan makes the MX-5 ND a model that the poor can't afford and the rich can't look up to.
Such poor market performance caused Mazda to fail to "digest" even the 500 MX-5 NDs introduced. In order to avoid causing greater losses, Mazda eventually decided to stop selling the MX-5 ND in the Chinese market. Like those cars mentioned above, when the MX-5's new car had nowhere to buy, the second-hand price of the MX-5 ND also rose instantly. At present, the price of MX-5 ND in the domestic second-hand market is generally around 350,000. That is to say, those owners who bought MX-5s around 2018 are equivalent to three years of white prostitution!
As a well-received car in "Top Gear", the 86/BRZ, which was listed in China in 2013, was indeed sought after by many people, after all, the price of this car at that time was 270,000, which was basically equivalent to a common brand of top-end B-class cars. With the development of domestic track days and the progress of car play culture, the popularity of 86/BRZ is also getting higher and higher, so the retention rate of these two brothers in the second-hand car market has also thrown away from other brands of sports cars by several streets.
And due to the introduction of China VI emissions, only China V emissions of 86 and BRZ can only finally withdraw from the Chinese market on December 31, 2020. The second-hand 86/BRZ at the time ushered in the first price increase, and the overall price rose to the point where it was only a little cheaper than the new car.
Just when fans were waiting for the new generation of 86/BRZ with upgraded 2.4L engine to be introduced into China, a basin of cold water was poured over... Although Subaru introduced the new BRZ into China on December 2, 2021, and the price of the manual version of 308,800 and the automatic version of 330,800 is also within the acceptable range of everyone, this car is not able to meet the emissions of China VIB, and directly missed many of China's first- and second-tier cities... As a result, the price of the previous generation of second-hand 86/BRZ ushered in the second price increase, and rose to 280,000-300,000 yuan that was the same as the new car of that year...
After reading the above 11 value preservation god cars, do you regret that you lost them because of a bad idea? In fact, many things when we feel that it is too late, usually far from the point of "exhaustion", just like at the end of today's fuel car era, whether it is these niche cars introduced in this article, or some niche cars currently on sale, the future retention rate will undoubtedly be full of surprises. After all, they are not like electric vehicles, more in the attributes of consumer electronics, and will not lose value because of the attenuation of the battery pack comparable to the price of the car!
What new cars do you think are currently on sale, which may become "value preservation gods" in the future? Leave your prediction in the comments section and we'll be back in 10 years to verify it!