What killed the 240

[twitchy]

Just out of curiosity- what made the 240 die? Why did North america stop wanting cheap, sporty RWD cars?

I mean the cheapest RWD car you can get now is what....V6 Stang maybe? and who the hell wants one of those?

If I ever get rid of mine im going to be very limited in a replacement due to my preference of RWD.

I wonder what everyone thinks.

[hookedup240]

it was killed because of sales, no one bought it don't ask me why.

[OptionZero]

notice how you never see a commercial emphasizing a car's RWD-ness?
You get the AWD crowd from Audi and Subie, because it appeals to offroad people and people know its safer.
It also shows off some high tech differential and shit that most people will never understand.

you never hear...we got FWD! we are safer! we got understeer!

just like u'll never hear

We got RWD! we got neutral handling! we got 50/50 weight and easily induced oversteer and its fun!?

nope.

[justinhustle]

over priced for what it was/is

meanwhile america is not the place for little rwd sporty cars minus the miata

[RedSuns]

the s14 were marketed as female cars.....


so I have heard...



no lovew for the s14's...


:wtc:

[Wei240]

high price, mediocre performance, low sales.

[ICKY]

Not many people were intrested...??

[GlacierFreeze]

Yes, not many people were interested. Why do you think there is no S15 here? Bad sales.

Wei240 hit the nail on the head.

[zero.counter]

High pricing, bad advertising, mis-aligned demographics, other choices at the time with more options/power/upgrade packages, etc.

[Bbandit]

too expensive back then.. especially for only 155hp @ the flywheel

[davidae86]

also the boom of SUVs during that time killed the sports car era... oh.. the rising yen didnt help either

[No Motiv]

something like it will be back....miata they still make those right?.....

[S13FREEAAK]

It"s the same thing that killed the 300zx, they priced themselves out of the market.

Joe

[the240sxer95]

its simple. the car sucks! case closed

[Modern Angel]

also the boom of SUVs during that time killed the sports car era... oh.. the rising yen didnt help either

Yup. The 300ZX, Supra, RX-7 and 3000GT all died in the mid to late 90's due to the SUV craze and a distinct lack of interest in sports cars for some reason. It's like all of a sudden people didn't want to have fun when they drove anymore... :loco:

[sil40sx]

if they released the s15 with the sr, and kept the price down, it would have sold through the roof, and not dropped in sales like the z33

[zombieman]

i'm under the assumption it's due to the lack of sale of the s14... think about how many s14 you see compare to the s13 models (for every s14 there is 10 s13)... and we were so close to getting the s15.... :bash:

[HyperTek]

becuase american market follows trends, we are lemmings, face it! If celebrity so and so drives an SUV, imma drive an SUV. haha

I dont think its overpriced. Its just Nissan has too many sporty-coupes at the time, Nissan North America sucks! America perfers overhyped front wheel drive, hence the success of the Dodge Neon and its popularity as a import race car.. (haha , jus a lil humor, im sick of seeing people tryin to race those out...)

[Pudula]

It was the s14...for some reason the 97-98 s14s werent wanted...120k+ cars sold in 95-96 whereas only ~6k 97-98s sold...wierd

[HyperTek]

oh yah.. see what i mean about trend?? all of a sudden everybody wants a 240 now?? Its getting coverage up the wazzooo with recent drift boom.

[FRpilot]

ppl rather buy an integra gsr for about the same price what s14s were goign for. 175hp > 155hp. ppl probably like the sound and feel of vtec over a torqie car. marketed towards females, and most females probably rather drive a miata or mustang.

[drift into a curb]

A lot of people like the V6 mustangs. Most of the high school kids/old grandmas that want to feel young/old men in their midlife crisis. It's marketed for the american market and they take it all in. Whether or not we agree, the population here that likes 240sx's (and 240sx accessories) is a small crowd and the rest of america doesn't give two $hits about silvias and crap associated with it.

[drift freaq]

ok a little numbers for you the S13 was actually a hit for rwd sporty cars they sold 120k worth in 89-90 . 91 they sold around 50k those numbers were equivelent to 240z sales in the 70's. Though in 92 the numbers started to drop they sold somewhere around 30k and in 93 sold around 20k . The S14 was refined because in the later years of the s13 some people who wanted cushy ride cars complained about the spartan feel of the s13 . So they refined it and even though the chassis was made stiffer the handling was softer. Anyways they did not sell 120k of the S14 in 95-96 it was more like somewhere around 80k all together . 97-98 's totalled around 12k sold. The main reason the car was killed was two fold number of sales were dropping and the price of the car versus what you got compared to the FWD competition i.e. Acura did not interest most people. Hell even in Japan S14's were not nearly as popular as the s13's and Nissans answer to that was to make the S15 which was actually a bit smaller and lighter than a S14 and more back to the concept of the S13 bit with refinements. It was also again horribly expensive for its catagory and did not sell all that well because of it.
Remember folks this all came down while Nissan was going through a really bad management period that made a lot of market miscues( the idea they should be competing with Toyota for the comfy family cruiser instead of focusing on their bread and butter sporty cars) and put the company heavily in debt. Hence Renault buying a 40% stake in the company which under Japanese law makes Renault the parent company. This was actually Nissans saving grace becuase Carlos Ghosn who was brought in by Renault to run Nissan turned the company around.
He brought Nissan back to its sporty car business and trimmed excess fat .
Nissan is a profitable company today because of this.

[twitchy]

yah good point

guess ill have to start saving for a 350Z although theres this nice lexus sc400 for sale nearby...Mmmm....

[WilloW]

I think this is approximately how many "240SX" were produced/sold in the US, S13 and S14.

89 - 68118
90 - 60582
91 - 34534
92 - 27033
93 - 21471
94 - 1167 convertibles?
95 - 25114
96 - 7334
97 - 3655
98 - 2178

[sykikchimp]

The cars begin to drop in sales b/c they didn't offer the same "Value" as many other cars in the same price range. Demand dropped as prices soared. = Death of S-chassis. :cry:

[S14Speed997]

People are buying S14's more and more now, because the "younger crowd" can afford to buy them...I remember back in 1997 when i was looking to buy a car, they had 240's marked at $24,ooo....How the heck would I, a 17 year old at the time, afford a car that expensive? I waited until 2000 to buy one for $16,000...and these days, you can get decent ones for $7000-$8000...

[lilredstiffy]

i killed the 240

[deedeedum]

i killed the 240

talk about a useless post

[lilredstiffy]

its a useless thread!

[mbmbmb23]

notice how you never see a commercial emphasizing a car's RWD-ness?

nope.


Have you seen any of the Pontiac GTO commercials?? They make a point of mentioning its RWD.

[mav1178]

Here's an email I sent to the Amarok.org 240SX mailing list, dated 8/20/02 (and also 8/17/01). Kind of long but my point is made.



-----Original Message-----
From: Alex C. Chang [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2002 1:00 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [240-chat] Re: what happened -> The New Silvia? (long reply)

I know there are some crazy discussions on this matter, but I feel I should speak my mind.

I wrote the following email last summer regarding this same matter.

Just an addition to my copied email that follows: Carlos Ghosn made it *VERY* clear that his long-term goal is to return the automaker to profitability, and have stable market growth. With that in mind, Nissan isn't going to just release a new Silvia and expect it to start moving volumes. We may think of the outgoing S15 as a God among sport compact cars, but to everyone else in the world (i.e. those beyond the 16-25 demographics that dominate this list) it is just "another souped up sporty car".

You guys can write petition letters all you want, but the undeniable fact is that platform-sharing and cost cutting is the plan at Nissan, and what comes out of the company within the next 6-12 months will determine the fate of the former Prince cars (Skyline and Silvia).

Lastly, the hard facts:

- The R-chassis is dead.

- The S-chassis is dead.

- The SR20 is no more.

- The RB26 is no more.

For reasons why the RB and SR are dead, follow this link:
http://forums.freshalloy.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB4&Number=305758&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

-alex


-----Original Message-----
From: Alex C. Chang
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2001 6:13 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: [240-chat] Re: USDM Silvia (again) <WAS> S2000


Heh, it really is funny when you guys talk about the cost of making the car, the cost of stuff behind the scenes...

But, think about it. Why was the 240SX killed??? Why was the S15 not introduced?

1) 1998, MSRP was around $25k for a loaded SE and/or LE. Compare that with the Prelude/Integra/whatever, the 240SX loses greatly in terms of cargo capacity, gas mileage, power, and (to a certain extent) handling. Plus, for a naturally aspirated car the insurance was quite high. Just imagine how much more insurance would be if there was a turbocharged engine!

2) Sales. In 1998 the 240SX moved LESS units in the North American market than the Acura NSX! If Nissan was making money/profit and wanted an "image car", then the 240SX could've stuck around. But since the S15 Silvia was introduced in the home market, and since S14 production was slated to end, there was no need to further pursue sales of the S15 Silvia (even with a turbocharged engine) when every bit of market data suggests that a turbo car would not fare fell. Look at the Eclipse. GS-T's accounted for less than 10% of overall Eclipse sales, and GSX models was about 20% of turbo sales (2% of overall Eclipse sales). Look at the Prelude. Compared to the Integra, it simply could not sustain itself. The sales for Prelude declined *EVERY* year since it was changed in 1997. Yes, selling 10,000 units can recover the cost of manufacturing, but it is a big mountain to climb when you only sold 700-ish 240SX's in 1998.

3) Profit/losses. Nissan was in huge debt, it was finding ways of moving cars off of dealerships, its dealership network was sluggish and performing poorly vs. rivals Honda and Toyota. If the S14 or S15 was sold in 1999 and lost even more money, upper management at Nissan would've been voted out by the stockholders. It made more sense to stop selling the car and rescue the company than continue selling and potentially go bankrupt.

As for why Nissan never reintroduced the S15, one of the fundamental principles that Carlos Ghosn remarked on was the tremendous legacy that the Z built for Nissan since the 1960's. To him, it was all about one principle car that defined what the automaker was about, and having that "DNA" trickle down into other models. The Z, to him, was that car, and one of his main goals was to revive the Z and make it the same as the original 240Z, world-class performance at a bargain price. Another one of his goals was to reduce Nissan's use of platforms for vehicles from 22 in 1999 to 10 platforms in 2004, and there was no way the Silvia could have been used as one of the "current" platforms to be adapted for future use. To him, it was all about cost savings, and the end result is that the S15 Silvia was never considered for sale in the U.S. market. I spoke with Mike Kojima (of SCC and Nissan NA) and a P.R. guy at Nissan NA, and both of them told me that the SCC campaign to convince Nissan to sell the S15 worked very well. There was an overwhelming response for support of importing the S15, but Nissan could not do anything about it because plans were already well under way on production of the new Z on the XVL concept platform.

To tell you the truth, I wouldn't be surprised if the next generation Silvia/S16 is based on the XVL platform also. That chassis (in the G35 featured in "Up Front" in the 09/01 issue of Car and Driver) is one of the best new chassis Nissan has produced in a LONG time, and it would make very much financial sense/responsibility if chassis-sharing was stretched to the Silvia also. FYI, the S15 currently sits on its own chassis/platform (which costs more to produce vs. shared platform vehicles), and sales of the Silvia are declining every year. Even the Skyline GT-R has had a sales decline for the past 2 years.

As much as we would like to have the cars, how many of us are willing (or can) go out today and buy a USDM S15? 10? 100? 1000? If Nissan can't see a definite profit (and report back its stockholders, primarily Renault SA), then the chances of a vehicle sold are slim. Take a look at Nissan's July sales: http://freshalloy.ubbforums.com/forum/Forum19/HTML/000096.html Even the new Q45 (highly hyped-up before it was introduced) sold less than last year's outgoing Q. There is still a *LONG* way to go before Nissan gets back on its feet, and before that happens don't expect a Silvia or S16 to pop up at our doors with ease.

-alex

[drift freaq]

alex your point is very well taken. I kinda of explained why the car died in general and you went into a little more detail adding the overall gameplan of Nissan under Ghosn. Long post but good. Yes I talked to Mike Kojima about this subject as well. I will only say that there is talk at Nissan to put a car, aka Silvia(based on the cross platform chassis sharing) into the market segment between the 350z and the SER but don't expect it before 2006 at the earliest.
Both the Skyline and the Z have been firmly reestablished by Nissan now. We are going to see the GTR as well though it will be a 50-60k car under the Infiniti nameplate.

[sil80doriftu]

I think the S15 would have sold. When I show my friends, even the ones who arn't into cars and the ones who hate "RICE CARS"(read: all cars not from NA/Europe), pics and stats of the S15's and built S14's, they think it is badass and say if Jap cars were more like that they would like them. Then I show pics of Supras, R32/33/34's, fairlady's, sevens, VR4's, and they're like "oh I thought all jap cars were Hondas with wings thats all i ever see." ahhh ricers!!! I've converted 3 people with grip vol. 3 and 4. a little of topic but i got no sleep last night and school just ended

[brianglawson]

rwd is comming back fast, in a few years the fwd carze will be over and rwd/awd will dominate, fwd will still bea round, in alot of the compacts but alot of companies are bringing back rwd...and im glad...

[mav1178]

You guys still do not understand.

Do you realistically think the S15 in 1999 would have sold 20k units? And sustain more than 15k units per year?

The 350Z (being as cheap as it is) didn't even break 20k units last year. Just because a handful of friends would buy the car doesn't mean they would actually purchase it. If you do not have the income or the ability to afford a $20k car AT THIS EXACT MOMENT then any discussion of "I think it would sell because I would buy one" is pointless and should not even be made.

The S15 was not introduced, plain and simple, because of market conditions at that time (along with many factors internally to Nissan NA). Can someone at least acknowledge the fact that the S15 is dead? Or should we continue the "oh the S15 would sell" discussion indefinitely?

-alex

[Gladman]

They're not selling them for cheap enough... assuming RWD/FWD didnt matter... why would someone have gone out and bought an S14, when they could get a Vtec civic that would be just as fast for like half the money.

The sales in 89 were awesome, what was the diff? To me, id say it was because they were simplified, start filling them with useless crap and raising the price, no one buys them. Look at the market now.... 350Z, STI or SRT-4.... :P which is faster? which is cheapest?

[russian]

why would you give a fuck? everything in life must come to an end

sooner

or

later

thus, you will see us in years to come, drivin 350z... it will be a new fad. :ughug:

[sr20det240pa]

winter and ice is the evil causing demise of rwd, either you gotta pick up for the winter or you got a heavy FWD or AWD....should you insure two cars? Or just buy one car and drive it all year round....southern and western states don't have this problem, but central, and northeast US are all snow areas. People look for reliability. I'm from PA and when that first flurry starts the words hanging on the lips is "lets get the beater out for the winter"

[slideways240]

i'm glad we didn't get the S15...that car with a KA would be blasphemous. :fawk2:

[HyperTek]

reason the sales sucks is trend!! People wrather buy a FWD pocket rocket becuase its the trend. I think Nissan should just kill off the Sentras, and replace that with a Silvia chassis, hell, we dont need a turbo motor, just at least a 200hp NA motor in it and it should fare good with the other sporty coupes around $20k. Hell, if they started doing an add campaign around "drifting", I think they would do pretty good.

[Bliss]

Hell, if they started doing an add campaign around "drifting", I think they would do pretty good.

LOL...how many people would go ape shit if that happened? So many people here bitch about the trendyness and new popularity of the 240SX and drifting. This place would go nuts if that happened.

I'd sit in the corner by myself and laugh.

[Flybert]

reason the sales sucks is trend!! People wrather buy a FWD pocket rocket becuase its the trend. I think Nissan should just kill off the Sentras, and replace that with a Silvia chassis, hell, we dont need a turbo motor, just at least a 200hp NA motor in it and it should fare good with the other sporty coupes around $20k. Hell, if they started doing an add campaign around "drifting", I think they would do pretty good.

You clearly didn't read Mav's post up above. How is it trend if the consumer is basing everything off of price vs. performance. It doesn't matter if it's FWD or RWD, what matters is what you get for the price you pay. In addition, did you not read about the cross platform planning that Nissan is currently doing? And lastly, do you know how much of a minority people on the internet forums are? Do you realize that most consumers don't think like you do? Do you realize that most people don't know what the hell drifting is and could give a flying fuck about it? How many people do you think drift S15's in japan? You have to realize that drifting new cars doesn't really happen because people who actually drift, mess up their cars all the time. Trying to sell cars to a market who is young, likes to buy old cars, spends all their money on performance parts rather than making car payments, most likely won't happen.

There's just too much personal opinion and speculation on this matter. I like Mav's and driftfreaq's post because it cuts through the BS that most people on this board blabber on about and tells it how it is.

[andrave]

besides that, focusing a campaign on drifting would get you sued into submission in .1 seconds. And besides, I see FWD Mazda 6 sliding through the desert already.

I do have to say though, that I see a lot of Evo 8's and STI's here in WV. I wonder if the snowbelt wasn't waiting for cars like this and thats why I don't see many RX8's, 350z's, (or hell, corvettes for that matter).

RWD is great and it is coming back, but I think the compacts will stay FWD. And honda seems dedicated to it, and they have been able to tune their chassis so well that why would they switch?

Anyway this post was pointless, I'm just rambling...

[mav1178]

You clearly didn't read Mav's post up above. How is it trend if the consumer is basing everything off of price vs. performance. It doesn't matter if it's FWD or RWD, what matters is what you get for the price you pay. In addition, did you not read about the cross platform planning that Nissan is currently doing? And lastly, do you know how much of a minority people on the internet forums are? Do you realize that most consumers don't think like you do? Do you realize that most people don't know what the hell drifting is and could give a flying fuck about it? How many people do you think drift S15's in japan? You have to realize that drifting new cars doesn't really happen because people who actually drift, mess up their cars all the time. Trying to sell cars to a market who is young, likes to buy old cars, spends all their money on performance parts rather than making car payments, most likely won't happen.

There's just too much personal opinion and speculation on this matter. I like Mav's and driftfreaq's post because it cuts through the BS that most people on this board blabber on about and tells it how it is.

Like I say over and over again:

If you have $25k disposable cash (or have the income to support buying a $25k car) RIGHT NOW, AT THIS EXACT MOMENT, you have every right to bitch about S15 or new RWD Nissan car or whatever.

If not, don't whine. I don't have that buying power and I accept the facts, plain and simple. And so should everyone else.

-alex

[AutoDestruct]

Yen to dollar conversion

[davenavarro1]

it died because of the freaking ka24de motor. if someone knew that an sr can make a boat load of power without not much money, maybe it would have last for 13 years like in japan.

[Phlip]

besides that, focusing a campaign on drifting would get you sued into submission in .1 seconds. And besides, I see FWD Mazda 6 sliding through the desert already.
Sort of, you'd get your ass sued into submission if you failed to do the one thing that Mazda does in those Mazda 6 and Miata commercials... Notice the not-so-small fine print, in the MIDDLE of the screen: "Professional driver, closed course. Do not attempt," which clears the car companies from liability in some kid killing themselves trying to drift in their high school parking lot... I agree with whoever it was that said that marketing a car around drifting wouldn't work because internet forums and import magazines make up a SMALL percentage of the car buying public and an even smaller percentage of the NEW car buying public... Take it a step further, they likely make up damn near ZERO of the "New cars costing 25k+" segment, so who is going to market to such a small segment? No one who wants to make any money selling whatever it is they're selling.
To answer the questions posed in this thread, "what killed the 240?" There are a couple of things, possibly being missed by some of the people on this board, simply due to chronological age, hell, I myself was only 19 in 1998. The car was not sellable in the US because cars costing LESS were performing equal and cars costing equal and more were running circles around them as a performance car... So, they sell it as a "personal coupe" as the S14, give it some luxury appointments and make it pretty, now it's a "chick car" to some people, while most are still driven away from it by the high price, low performance and mixed mainstream magazine (C&D, MT, Etc...) reviews. The amount of cars that Nissan was able to sell was not enough to warrant the continued prodution of the car, and the S15 never stood a chance at being here because it would have cost more and there already no market for such an automobile exhibited in the US to warrant the import of THAT car... We tend to get caught in our emotional attachment to our S-Chassis cars and wish they could have stayed around forever, providing our subjective reasoning for such, but think about it, how many of us have had them since they were new? How many of us could afford them when they were new? How many of us were even liscensed drivers when they were new? Fact of the matter remains, car companies can NOT sell cars based on a minority subjective/emotional feeling. They cannot afford to think with their hearts, they have to think with their heads, the fact remains that the 240 killed itself in the US, it overpriced and underperformed itself right out of the market.

[nguyenk2003]

All I gotta say is, Nissan musta feel DUMB for not takign the S15 out here... and EVEN if they did a KA would of just killed it unless it some how stayed with the SR hehe ^_^ Hmmm S15... Seriously if they did that it could of been a limited Edition I think it would of sold...

[Phlip]

All I gotta say is, Nissan musta feel DUMB for not takign the S15 out here... and EVEN if they did a KA would of just killed it unless it some how stayed with the SR hehe ^_^ Hmmm S15... Seriously if they did that it could of been a limited Edition I think it would of sold...
You're joking right? You couldn't have possibly have meant that if you read a representative HALF of the posts on this thread, the S15 would NOT have sold in the states, ESPECIALLY with a KA... The 240SX declined in sales at the same rate as it's competitiveness in the US market, in sellability based on looks and performance paled in comparison, in the eyes of new car buyers, you know the people that car companies gauge such decisions on? The S15 would not have changed this. Sure, it looks good, but was a smaller and less practical car that would have been released at a time where having children at a younger age was becoming popular again and small cars just were not sellers... Now put a KA in it and it becomes too small, too slow and (for some fuckin reason) STILL too expensive to warrant the purchase of.

[nguyenk2003]

No.. I'm saying "IF" they sold the S15 here with a KA, it would die off... but "IF" they sold it with the SR and making it into a LIMITED EDITION like the Integra Type-R, it could do some what good I guess...

[Phlip]

Again, thinking with your heart and not your head... Do you know why we never got the SR'd cars here?
1. It would have put the performance of the car too uncomfortably close to the Z (While this wouldn't have been a factor beyond 1996)
2. Emissions
3. The US buying public (even enthusiasts at times) proves to be sometimes too damn ignorant to properlay maintain turbocharged automobiles.

... now, let's stop thinking like the people WE happen to be at this particular point in the game and look back at this, placing the SR in the S15 would have made it MORE expensive on 2 fronts, even as a 'limited edition' (keeping in mind that one must FIRST sell enough of the regular edition to warrant the production of a limited edition) car, and given the poor sales of the S14 and declining profitability of nissan to that point, would YOU have taking a chance based on blind speculation AT THAT TIME... Hindsight being 20/20 makes it easy to look back now and say that the SR would have been a great idea and possibly would have sold, but this is FOLLOWING the attention of the internet/import mag/carshow/drift junkies, which was then non existent and is now a TINY number of new car buyers, especially cars that cost what the S14 did when it was ousted and what the S15 would have HAD to cost.

[Bliss]

2. Emissions


not saying youre wrong, but i was under the (perhaps very incorrect) impression that a properly taken care of, with proper emissions equipment, SR could pass SMOG... wrong? right? anyone got any real numbers/evidence?

[HyperTek]

Bah!! It would be an OEM engine to pass emissions, so its not like a engine swap etc. Nissan woulda just designed it to meet US standards.

Im rethinking my thought. Nissan NA just sucks. Probably the thing that killed it is price, just like the 300zx in its final days, no one wanted to pay that much. There is too much competition for a car company in the US being that everybody makes cars, so to compete I guess you gotta cut some of your lineup and just concentrate on the big sellers.

But now 240s are becoming trendy and getting more attention. Umm.. see how american market flexes? Well it could also be because the cars are cheap now. But gebus, i wouldnt be surprised if some of these importers are stealing JDM silvia chassis etc from Japan and bringing them over here to make a buck on the raising demand. Just all reason to love america!

[Phlip]

not saying youre wrong, but i was under the (perhaps very incorrect) impression that a properly taken care of, with proper emissions equipment, SR could pass SMOG... wrong? right? anyone got any real numbers/evidence?
And I imagine that there are emissions control laws in Japan as well, but are they as strict as say, a California? Now I, as a car company will have to, on my own dime, add shit to the car to make it road legal in the US. These are costs that I cannot expect to realistically pass on to my consumer, so I lost money.




Bah!! It would be an OEM engine to pass emissions, so its not like a engine swap etc. Nissan woulda just designed it to meet US standards.

But now 240s are becoming trendy and getting more attention. Umm.. see how american market flexes? Well it could also be because the cars are cheap now. But gebus, i wouldnt be surprised if some of these importers are stealing JDM silvia chassis etc from Japan and bringing them over here to make a buck on the raising demand. Just all reason to love america!

Is the SR any less an OEM engine in and engine swap? Now throw a bevy of aftermarket shit at it, as has become customary, and no it isn't but it STARTS as an OEM engine... The 240 has become popular in the US now (or comparitively popular, based on the decreasing number of available cars) because of their decreasing market value based on their INCREASING age... I doubt that anyone is importing Japanese chassis, converting them to left hand drive, swapping KAs into them and selling them off as 240's or even selling them as 'swapped' cars. The cars are now so low priced in the market has made that an extremely unlikely and overly expensive idea...