Miami show vs Reailty
 

I spent 9 hours in and outside of the convention center today and I must say that most of the stuff there is way over my head for potential purchase.

My pick of the show from items that I could truly, maybe, someday, buy would be the new Ilmor drive and some big cube aluminum LS small blocks, 600 to 750 hp with great torque.

From all the vendors that I spoke to, times are universally tough. Join the club.

Yeah..If its out of your league its out of league for 97+% all guys. < ....thats a period there.

I wondered from way out here in LA ...... how many half million to unlimited dollar priced rides are really being sold today.

Seems like the buying market is really a bit downrange from that show - but its inspirational for sure.

As usual you cut through the BS like a laser through cream cheese.

"didn't see the drive yet.....


Uncle Dave

I think you need to admit that, the Miami show is the IT SHOW, bring the best. Even lets say mid size builders bring their most BLING products to that show. If your looking for what the upper 10% of Americans can afford it will most likely be at your local Boat show, (assuming you don't live in Miami)

Upper .01% is target market for that show, Hey and if that makes your head turn, go to the FT Lauderdale show with the Yachts:eek: :ernaehrung004: they have ferrari's and Bentlys parked on floating docks, "special of the day buy this yacht get the ferrari for free :-)

What's up, does Ilmor have their own drive?

I love it all from an aphrodisiac point of view....
No slam on the show per se--I agree-Its ultra high end.

To be fair Beverly Hills gives Miami it a pretty good run for the money in ferrari/Lambo-per capita comparison there is plenty of money out here.

At the same time my comment stands- I don't think that market is really is really moving much product.


Uncle Dave

Agree on all points, and I am sure Beverly Hills, can keep up with the Miamian's or pass. Now they all just need to go spend some of the money.:drink:

I would agree Miami is THE show to strut your stuff.

Until this year..

Judging by some of the VERY obvious fit and finish issues at the show, it appears many of the major players were on the fence about the show until just recently..

ScottB, Agree. I was especially surprised at the Donzi offerings. They have always been first class. For the most part, these weren't. Their smaller boat was especially not like Donzis that I've seen.

The 27ZR was the first of the new cabin/interior layout, and not finished yet..

I was shocked at the prices of some boats. I have been looking over some small center consoles in the 26' range. These small boats have base prices with the less HP outboards on them starting at $79-85K...WTF? After you add some needed options and bump up to the mid HP outboard you are close to $100k!!!!

That's because if Donzi doesn't sell a bunch of boats this show, they are done. This Miami show is make or break for Donzi. Thus the down sized display from past years.

I worked the skater booth and we hade a good turn out and more leads than i thought we would get so no complaints here

Bill,

Most chit-starters who spew uneducated statements out there for the sake of entertaining themsefls....

start out their diarrhea of the mouth/fingers comments by giving them-self's an "out" incase someone calls their Bull-Chit.... i.e

"I Hear from a close source of the company".... ( Insert BS here) ____________ or

maybe just "Rumor has it" ( Insert BS here)_______.

But you didn't even go that far... your getting lazy on me bro!!!

& I am calling your BULL-Chit-Out!!!!
take that crap somewhere else, you don't know JACK about Donzi or any other private held powerboat company's financial status and
your comment is just as above mentioned diarrhea.... SLIMY, EVEN YOU DONT KNOW HOW YOU GOT IT and IT REEKS OF CCHIT!!!

No company is going to invest into tooling and new products as much as Donzi has in the last few years to be made or broken by one show. PERIOD.
So even to the lammen your comment is see through... BS politics.

I'd like to point out Cigarette has a boat at the show with VINYL graphics (NOT EVEN A WRAP). maybe Cig is going outta business too? eh?

Spreading rumors of any company going out of business is good for no one. I agree if you don't have facts its best not to say anything at all.

Say it ain't so!!!! lol....lol....

br's been spouting that for months.. One more board I need to put him on the ignore list I guess...

I work for Hustler's export outside the states and we had a nuch better show than expected.

Sunsation sold that XRT 32 with the exotic dash/ scoops to a buyer in Venezuela.... XRT #2 is in production already.

From the pics it appears Skater and Nortech had the best cats.

Donzi was downright embarrassing. Fit and finish horrible. They would have been better to not show up at all. We did the boat show run with Donzi classics, newest boat was 1997, and the fit and finish on all the old boats were better than the new ones. Maybe they should have had us bring our old boats to the show :eek:

The surprising company of the show: Baja. Fit and finish looked very impressive.

I was also impressed with a few cheaper boats. Banana looked hot, Sutphen looked hot too. both reasonable compared to the big names.

Skater booth was by far the best powerboat display there. They brought the hardware.

I stopped by to say high Jim, but you were out. Talked to Bruce. Nice guy. I have been scratchin a lot of LOTTO tickets since I left that booth.

Unfortunately for us though, nothing was more impressive than the in the water show. Those big yachts are amazing. Where does that money come from?

Looking at the photos, looks like Skater really stepped up their cockpits. They were very nicely done.

Yep! And the Ilmor package is very attractive. I believe they have hit a home run. The drive is capable of 1000HP and 1000ft # of torque and transmission uses only 4 hp and 14ft # of torque from the motor. Wow!. Prop hp is close to the flywheel hp. Impressive

Does anyone have pics of the fountain and baja?

Why is it This way Now!
 

Lets do a little boat economics and marketing 101 here in this post.
First, the performance boating market (buyers) and indeed pretty much the whole boating market could not be in a more depressed state if it tried.
Second, most all the boat builders and engine and equipment suppliers have had a wonderful run in sales and profits for the last 8 years or so.
The honeymoon is over so how does the industry shake out?
Not real good for a lot of companies. Some of these builders of larger quantities of performance boats and engines, headers, guages, etc such as (then Baja) Now Fountain, Donzi, Eliminator, who are set up to build over 100 boats per year, engine companies like Mercury, Volvo,Ilmor, Teague and equipment suppliers like Gaffrig, Lavorsi, CMI, Trailer builders, etc. are currently having ABISSMAL sales results. when these companies have the investment, debt, organization size, factories and equipment to build large qauntities of product and the sales go in the "Toilet" the effects are obvious and devastating.
They have to keep a presence in the industry at shows like Miami and there current sales won't even pay for even close to a "break even."
There is already an ongoing scale back in our industry to drop expenses to meet reduced sales and it will continue all this year at least.
There are also a small quantity of what we call higher end and "compact" boat builders such as Skater, MTI, Cigarette, Outerlimits, Nortech and specialty suppliers whose annual sales of these higher end boats are in the 10-30 boats per year range .
They sell these boats to a small market of high net worth, large cash flow customers who even in a down ecomomy have larger sums of disposable income and can afford the extra time to play with and travel with these "Big Toys."
Then there are the small mid-level boat builders such as Sunsation, Active Thunder, Velocity, Pantera, etc. that can generally still stay active in a depressed market because hopefully they have less debt, overhead, large facilites and big payrolls that would help "bust" them in an economy like this one we have now. These builders build a really nice quality custom performance boat that is somewhat still affordable to some "average" performance boaters and they can tailor the finished product easily to get the boat more affordable.
Where is the boat market going now especially the performance boat market will depend on a few things.
1. How long this recession/depression really lasts.
2. What happens to the cost of oil and fuel over the long run.
3. How the liberal public and government moves to shutdown this form of recreation. (Performance boaters tend not to be Liberals!), THROUGH REGULATIONS, RESTRICTIONS AND CLOSURES!
4. Whether or not a real disposible income enviroment and spending philosophy will ever again reappear in the American Performance Boating Expierence.

In the mean time our industry will shake out and creep along with those builders and suppliers who can "Ride It Out" until things hopefully improve and correct.

At Raylar we are glad we are in the postion we are in now, we offer products and engine packages that are high quality and technology advanced at an affordable price level. We have no debt, very low overhead and an operation that can quickly adapt and survive in this challanging market enviroment!
The real market with potential now is the upgrade, refit and rebuild market as customers switch to upgrading either their exisiting boats or pick up good value in used boats being liquidated and sold in the volatile market place of performance boats and improving those products.

This is now how the boat shows, advertising, new offerings will appear this year and into the near future. Less big over the top boat displays, parties, events and magazines and magazine programs! The industry just can't afford the spending practices of the past in the current economy and it appears that a resonable quantity buyers are just not there now!

Just a lot of people looking for information and entertainment, And That Won't Pay The Bills.!!
Class Dismissed!

Best Regards,
Ray @ Raylar

WOW... Well Said.. And so true!!!

How do you top that??

And he should know also since he has been around a while.:cool:

The ultra rich people I know are also standing on the sidelines. For example, my best man is one of the wealthiest men in Europe. He has plenty of cash to buy any yacht at the Miami show.

However, he sees this as a depression, not a recession. Its been going on for over a year in the US, and this last quarter saw the world's second largest economy (Japan) shrink by 13%! In one quarter!

Why just blow cash, when some VERY amazing deals on truly valuable assets are appearing.

Think about GM: for a few billion dollars, buy a company that grosses 200 billion per year.

This sort of pricing of real performing assets has not been seen since the 30's, the last time f*ing republican free traders trashed the world economy.

Back to our regularly scheduled broadcast...

:ernaehrung004: Spoke to Chris this morning ,sounds like Peter and the crew are real happy with the show :ernaehrung004::ernaehrung004:

I agree and disagree. the zf's were not up to par, but the 009, zrc and the 27's cockpit looked nice.
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g8...i/DSC00285.jpg
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g8...i/DSC00281.jpg
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g8...i/DSC_0035.jpg
http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g8...i/100_2240.jpg

Looks like they shoulda dragged those Boats to Boston !:evilb:
http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/BO104706/

Being a former boat owner for the past 20 years, just my opinion, that the lack of customer support has declined year after year, which is also fueled by fewer boat yards. My last boat, I sold 2 years ago 42 Tiger, which truth be told was not a difficult boat to maintain, but nevertheless, even the most simple mechanicals, took way to long to address, and never got the support from the manufacturer when needed. Living in the North East as seasonal as it is, there is nothing worse than having down time, with very limited service. Most former boat owners share the same thoughts, there was a time not so long ago, that there were easy 20 high perfomance boats on my canal from Apaches to Cigarettes, now only 2, with one of them for sale. I hope that things turn around within the industry, but in order to do this builders will have to come up with a better business model to support their customer base, and restore customer confidence in their products until such time sadly it will only get worse.