I'm agreeing with you 100%. The concept here is that the R&D has already been done for our cars, and 5 other matching platforms, 3 of which are still in production(not including the Mazda 6).
Porsche stopped production on the 928's in the early 90's I believe, as well as the 944's, and in the 80's for the 924's and 1976 for the 914/6's, yet all the headers are cheaper than ours. By the way, the 928 is a rwd V8 and I'm sure equal to or more R&D went into those headers than ours.
It is wonderful of MSDS to do this for us. My statement only reflects that the price of headers for our engines, which are still in production, is not in line with the average cost of the rest of their header offerings. Not to mention, the amount of contours/mystiques/cougars/escapes/tributes/6's on the road far exceeds the number of porsches on the same roads.
Now, taking your figures from above for production costs vs. profit, but we must consider possible opportunities in the form of Duratec vehicles on the road and Porsches on the road. Say there are conservatively 1,000,000 duratec vehicles on the road and .005% of them are potential buyers. That is 5000 realistic possible buyers. Now, say there are 40,000 porsches on the road and since porsches are more apt to be tuned, we say .05% of thse cars are potential buyers, that would be 2000 realistic potential buyers. Doing the math based on your numbers:
Duratec- 5000 cars x $200 production cost = $1,000,000
Duratec- 5000 cars x $350 retail = $1,750,000
Duratec profit = $750,000
Porsche- 2000 cars x $200 production cost = $400,000
Porsche- 2000 cars x $350 retail = $700,000
Porsche profit = $300,000
Actuals for both duratec and porsche are most likely way, way less, but there is clearly way more potential to lower the retail price for a platform which is still in production and way more units on the road.
But again, I am appreciative that such a high quality header is availble, just wish the price was in line and if they were cheaper, many more people would buy them.
Just my .02
