Is the Tuner Market Dead?

[Tekknikal]

<img src="http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t193/streetseen/brakes/DSC00708.jpg" alt="" />

This question was asked by some guys that work with Endless, which is a relatively high end manufacturer of suspension components and brake systems. You can read the full article <a href="http://og-made.com/">here </a>(great site btw). To summarize the article though, they wonder if the tuner market is dying because all people want is the cheapest possible products (as opposed to quality products). As a result, companies such as Endless and HKS find themselves in difficult situations because the market isn't interested in purchasing their products. Meanwhile, companies that just produce copies and/or low quality products get rich.

Obviously the flip side of the story is that many of these companies produce very high end products that aren't affordable to most. But at the same time, business for companies like Endless and HKS seems really slow, and the market as a whole doesn't appear to be interested in paying their prices- even when they can afford it. Meanwhile, as the guys from Endless post, they feel that it might not be their job, as a racing company, to re-educate the masses.

StreetSeeners, what do you think?

[Duttyman]

Ok- The author exercised as much restraint as could be expected form a man of passion. That said, the meat of his post relates to the fact that demand is what it is. It is WILLINGNESS and ABILITY to pay. I also believe that all we men of passion have to understand that business is what we make of it. In fact, it is the ultimate act of freedom. For instance, instead of worrying about who is responsible for educating the masses, it would be more prudent to understand whether educating the masses is part of what you (the business man) want to do for your business (I think the author arrived at a similar conclusion). The reality is,educating the masses is and always will be where the lion share of the profits reside. Left to many engineers there would be no GUIs and some aviation enthusiasts I know would have limited who was allowed to fly long before September 11th and so on and so on...So are we to believe that just because these paradigms are accepted en masse,command line systems and private aviation are untenable or impractical offerings as consumption alternatives? Yeah right! So I believe the Tuning market is far from dead, it is evolving like all markets do. Economies of scale have made production cheaper and that which was elite is now common place. In turn, individuals who wanted to get in before and could not, now can.Kinda like a college education. So back to the choice. There are many who have chosen to remain elite and have done really well without compromise. Funny how people use Ferrari and others like Ferrari as bench marks but forget what they represent. Is Ferrari starving? It is and always will be a choice who we as men of passion decide to sell our skill sets and products derived from those skills to.