Clarkson, Hammond, and May did a review of that Abarth Spider 124. It is literally a Miata (manufactured by Toyota) with Fiat badges and such. Their review of it was less than flattering.

Yes. It is the classic "against italian cars".
The fact that the car is assembled in Japan, is only part of the story.

I still think is awesome, way more that Z3, Z4, SLK or Miata.

Oh, you're right, the number may refer to first tier only (however there is nothing interesting in 1st tier, so let's hope most of purchases are for the whole bundle;).

Anyway, thanks a lot for sharing the details. It's really interesting. It looks that the market is extremely inflated and there are no changes for reasonable profit being in "long tail". To earn something, it is necessary to be AAA dev or find the niche. This case confirms that, I think.

By the way, I was planning a bit similar project 1-2y ago as a potentialy profitable way of gaining some coding skills. The idea was to hire someone for graphics - and take a niche approach. As I have kids and I think there is still lack of decent apps for them, I was planning to make simple apps for small children (and test them on my kids:). There was also option to make them a bit catholic-friendly or even bible-themed, which I considered a chance to get attention of catholic media and get some promotion for free ;)

Unfortunately, since I've become father of three, my spare time resources completely depleted and there is no chance for that in reasonable future. Feel free to use that ideas ;)

By the way - do you consider Goldmine as the first and the last try? or planning to develop something more in future?

I don't necessarily think they are "against Italian cars". James May is a big Ferrari fan and the other two have driven Italian cars that they praised quite a bit. I guess what it comes down to is personal preference. If you are happy with your car (insert computer/game/life/etc) then that is all that really matters, right?
The 4th generation Chevy Malibu seems to be a good candidate for the type of car you are talking about. Seen several of them. Like this wagon model:

Still waiting to pull out our summer cars for some top-down / top-off fun. Was looking good back in mid-March, but then Mother Nature changed her mind. Maybe by late April...

We didn't get much snow this year so there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity to play around in those low-grip situations during winter. On the upside, there wasn't much plowing to do, either. Given that our driveway really went to shit between last winter and this one, I'm happy about that. Hope to get it completely redone late this year, but we'll see how that goes.

But hey, it WILL warm up and dry out at some point, so I guess we can find happiness in the promise of nicer weather.

Being a big fun of Ferrari, is easy :p

It's new, therefore rare, therefore a head turner for certain. Back when I was young and poor, I bought a KIA just when they first came to the states. People in very expensive cars stopped to ask me WTF it was that I was driving. =)

BTW, I got nothing at all against your car, dude. I know all about how fun roadsters are and it's awesome that you got one to enjoy. Doesn't matter who makes it and who sells it so long as you are happy driving it.