Orange County’s auto dealers will have to sit tight until 2010 when a “strong recovery” is predicted, according to the Costa Mesa-based Orange County Automobile Dealers Association’s year-end report.
“The list of negative forces impacting the market in 2008 is uncomfortably long,” according to the report.
The threats: tight credit, rising unemployment, falling home values, excessive consumer debt, slow economic growth and higher gas prices.
The number of registered vehicles,a barometer of new auto sales,fell 9.2% last year to 165,919.
“The decline was steeper than we had anticipated,” the report said.
Toyota/Scion still holds most of the market share in OC, followed by Honda and Ford.
This year, auto dealers are forecasting another drop of 3.1% to around 160,000 registered cars.
Market watchers say the slow sales will force dealers to be more competitive, lower prices and interest rates on loans and offer buyer incentives.
The report says that hybrids and new technology related to lower emissions and improved gas mileage is set to spur sales in the near future.
“The industry is on the cusp of a massive product launch that addresses these emerging trends,” according to the report.
Despite the push for eco-friendly cars, consumers still are clamoring for sport utility vehicles.
The SUV segment led the growth in 2007 compared with 2006. But buyers are choosing compact SUVs over full-size, which saw its market share shrink in 2007.
The biggest year-over-year increases in 2007: Mazda, with a 19.8% gain; Saturn, up 19.5%; Mini Cooper, up 13.2%; Audi, up 9.7%; Jeep, up 9.3%; Hyundai, up 1.3%; and BMW, up 1.3%.
Some of the biggest declines were registrations of Suzuki, which was down 28%; Jaguar also was down 23.5%. Jaguar, part of Ford Motor Co., is expected to be acquired by India’s Tata Motors Ltd. Tata is also picking up Ford’s Land Rover, which, like Jaguar, has its U.S. base in Irvine.
The biggest decliner was Pontiac, down 40.4%. Hummer was down 33.6%.
Within the luxury segment, Lexus closed out the year a tad higher than Mercedes-Benz, followed by BMW. Lexus had 22.7% of the market, Mercedes, 22.5%, and BMW 19.2%.
The top-selling luxury model was the Mercedes E Class, with 3,810 registrations. Lexus RX led the mid- and full-size SUV category, with 3,470 registrations.
In the “near luxury” category, the BMW 3 Series led the way with 5,906 registrations.
The only other luxury brand that was up in 2007 was Audi. Registrations were up nearly 10% from 2006.
Among entry-level vehicles, Toyota Yaris had the biggest share of the market in 2007, with 2,064 registrations, double that of the next closest competitor, the Honda Fit.
From Clothing to Haircuts
As if Generic Youth wasn’t already eclectic enough, the clothing store in Costa Mesa is adding a hair salon in a few weeks.
The salon will be in the middle of the store and hairdressers will rent space. Generic Youth already has the plumbing set up in the back of the store.
Cutting hair and selling clothes may seem to be an odd combination. But owner Jeff Yokoyama is one creative guy. Yokoyama was a hairdresser in Newport Beach when he was in his 20s. His daughter, Coco, who came up with the name Generic Youth, sold her first batch of Generic Youth T-shirts at a hair salon.
The hair salon is part of Yokoyama’s pop-up idea. He has been bringing in different local designers to set up temporary pop-up stores within his store. The pop-ups are on one side of the store, Generic Youth on the other.
The designers benefit by having a store to sell in, and Generic Youth benefits from the shoppers that the brands draw.
Atwater Clothing, based in Costa Mesa, brought in hundreds of people to the store, he said. Those are people who might not otherwise stop by.
The pop-ups are a necessity, he said. They help pay the bills.
The store, decorated with surfboards on the ceiling, doesn’t feel like a store because of the way it’s set up. It looks more like a designer’s workspace, and it is to an extent. There is a sewing corner where Yokoyama and an employee put together new designs.
Yokoyama does some of the illustrations for the T-shirts and also enlists local kids to design. He pays them for their artwork.
Yokoyama, founder of Modern Amusement, a company he sold in 2004 to Mossimo Inc. (now part of New York-based Iconix Brand Group Inc.), said Generic Youth began as a summer project for his daughter.
Her profile in silhouette is the brand logo.
