Dustin_RENAMED

Does anyone know how many CLS 6 speeds were made or where to get this information?

spdy0001

Smitty

If I am not mistaken...2700 manual 2003 CL-S's were produced

GreenMonster

Here's what Mr. Slimey found out:

http://www.acura-cl.com/forums/showt...etter+produced

2700 is the only number we know of, but I think that was for projected sales. Actual sales??

Only Acura knows for sure how many were produced and those fuckers aren't telling us. Didn't their Corporate parents teach them to share when they were growing up

In contrast, Chevrolet released these numbers for the 2002 Vette:

http://www.idavette.net/facts/2002/2...inal%20Pro.htm

I just don't understand why Acura can't release the numbers on a discontinued model

paulff3

Acura said 10% of what ever they made would be 6 speeds. At the time that worked out to be 2,700. So, could be more or less that 2,700.

brian6speed

iTrader: (5)

I coulda sworn they said 7%.

Slimey

Mr. Greenmonster nicely cited my letter (I always get a when I see you reply to me as Mr. Slimey - it makes the Slimey name seem dignified ).

The 2700 number came from the first press release when the six speed was anticipating release (I think this was winter 2001). MY2003 saw the first CL Type S with the 6MT, the first vehicles were released in 3/02 and (I think) the first build dates were 2/02. Why are the dates important? - because I have not seen an Acura/Honda press release that concerns CL production numbers since before the MY2003 rolled out. There were no interim updates during the rest of 2002 & 2003. Although the 2700 number seemed like a boast of a limited edition ("hey Mr. Consumer - we're making you a rare bird") early on, they never followed up on that claim.

Based on the reply to my letter, I don't think we'll ever really know that real number of 6MT released. That's really too bad.

Dustin_RENAMED

Does anyone know how to tell the production number from the VIN?

Slimey

As you are relatively new here, I'll reply. I suggest you read Chod's FAQ before people start pummeling you. Link is in my signature.

A little VIN tutorial:
VIN is a 17 digit alphanumeric that signifies the serial number of the car as well as some production information.

For the Acura CL

The production date is further documented on the driver's B pillar VIN plate with month and year.

Although a car with the number 1 is sequentially ahead of car number 2, it doesn't mean that number 2 came off the line after number 1. The VIN is assigned at the initiation of production. Some numbers are never produced, or cars with certain numbers are destroyed before they leave the factory. Sometimes a vehicle can return the the production line and then exit later then other cars with VINs in sequence ahead of it (back to the beginning of the line for you!). The CL with 6MT does not occupy a certain block of VIN but are intermixed throughout the production year. The production date is a better indicator of the production date (!) then the last 6 of the VIN.

Chaptorial

I always thought it was 2700.

GreenMonster

If you want to get the the total MY03 production figures you can dig them up at the hondanews.com site.

IntegraVT has a neat speadsheet of the CL totals here if you're interested in the total number of CL's produced.

We'll never know for sure, but the 2700 number sounds about right. I never added up the totals in the spreadsheet, but my WAG[1] is that 14,000 to 16,000 2003 CL's were made (CLP and CLS).

If 16,000 MY03 CL's were made, and 17 % of those were 6spds, the number comes out to 2720. Who knows what the actual percentage is

Regardless of the actual number (I think 2700 is probably close), the 6spd is probably a pretty rare car. The San Marino Red 6spds are the rarest, I hear




[1] Wild Ass Guess

edit: Mr. Slimey just sounds better then just plain Slimey

Slimey

Nice spreadsheet. Someone had too much time on their hands, huh?

Still, the only numbers that are available to the public are total unit sales, not true production numbers and no breakdown on colors, navi options, or transmission options. Bummer.

I wonder if Acura sold all the CL 6MT produced, or if some are still sitting on lots.

As a total aside, what happens to cars that sit on lots well past their model year? For instance, you just don't see new MY1999 cars sitting on lots in 2003. Not all of them could sell, could they? Do they go to auction? Do they get sold back to the manufacturer for scrap? Something I never thought about before.

I'm not sure what Acura gains by keeping their production numbers a corporate secret. It must be something I missed in my business class. It'd be cool if someone that works in a dealer could leak what was available to them for ordering from the manufacturer. hint hint...

darrinb

2700

dfreder371

All I know is I got one. And it's a keeper!

And I usually trade cars every two years, or <30,000 miles!

QuestMGD

Looks like I got one of the last CL-S. VIN 016016 6 speed.

GreenMonster

My dealer said that they were alotted ONE 6spd per month. They could order it anyway they wanted (color/non-navi/navi).

A dealers alotment is dependant on prior sales so some dealers probably got 2 or 3 a month if they were a high volume Acura dealer.

I think that the leftovers go to auction if they don't sell. I almost bought a leftover 02 Accord exv6 last october for about 1750 UNDER invoice, so I think that alot of them get blow out by the dealer before they go to auction. Metro Honda had about 1/2 dozen accords (mostly silver) when the 03 accords started showing up on the lot. If they keep cutting the price someone will eventually buy 'em.

My Acura Dealer (Inskip) hasn't had had a 03 CL on their for about 6 months (lots of used 1st and 2nd gen cl's tho').

QuestMGD: Yes, it looks like you got one of the last ones. Sweeper has Production #15830, DOM 05/03 on his CL (purchased 11/14/2003) but I don't think it was a 6spd.

HohLake

Since I got my six speed in April, I have been working on trying to answer this question. Using owners link on the acura web site, and my knowledge of how the VIN's are coded, here's my current numbers. This is pretty tedious work and might not be complete. I know for a fact that these numbers don't include cars made for Canada, their VIN's don't seem to be in the acura.com database.


Exterior
Interior non nav total

Anthracite
Ebony 443 129 572

Black
Ebony 480 167 647
Parch 258 52 310
All 738 219 957

Blue
Ebony 230 66 296

Red
Ebony 122 24 146
Parch 217 61 278
All 339 85 424

Silver
Ebony 763 223 986

White
Ebony 43 12 55
Parch 135 54 189
All 178 66 244


Total 2691 788 3479

HohLake

The last 6 speed off the line was 16337, there are 81 six speeds after yours.

GreenMonster

Wow, I didn't realize that there are so few 6spds w/ navigation.

Great Job

Did you have to enter each vin (16337) to get the info, or did you discover a shortcut ??

Looks like a White 6spd w/ ebony interior w/ Navi is the rarest w/ only 12 made.

HohLake

No, I haven't checked every VIN that's why I say the numbers might not be complete. I started with my own VIN and a few other VINs that were on my dealers lot back in May. From these I detemined that the 6 speeds were made in runs of 60 cars. I then started a search thru the entire VIN range every 50 production numbers, thinking this would catch all of the runs. I then found all the the cars around these hits, and found that some runs were only 30 cars. I've started going thru by 10's but I'm only 75% done with this. This has also found 1 car that was not produced as part of a run, but is all alone. So I might not ever find every last one, but the numbers I posted are probably 95% or more of the cars produced for the American market. I've had no luck with the Canadian market cars, these have an 8 in the top digit of the production number and I can't find them in the owners link database.

GreenMonster

You are a true master of the CL vins

I thought you must have found some kind of short cut.

SO you found that the cars were made in batches of 30 and 60, which is cool. I guess that they must of shut down the line from making accords (or whatever) at Maryville to run thru a batch (30,60, depending on demand) of CLs.

Did you notice any other trends ??

Did exterior colors run in series (a bunch of blue, then black then red, etc) or where the colors random ??

Thanks for taking the time to research this and sharing it with us. I really get into production facts.

Slimey

Cool.
Very Interesting.
Great first post.
I also didn't realize that the 6MT + Navi was so unusual.

Welcome to A-CL.com.

HohLake

Within a batch, all cars of a particular exterior/interior are grouped together. A batch of 60 cars sometimes was a single color combo, sometimes as many as 8. For the most part a batch would either be all navi, or all non-navi but some batches are mixed with the navi's and non-navi's grouped together.

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Great topic guys... I'm going to copy this into the Extremely Useful Topics section so we can archive it.

Slimey

Joe5.0

Mine is 016031. Where does that put me? I bought it in June of 03, which was supposedly according to the dealer the last production run.

HohLake

Your in the second to last run with 66 cars made after yours. There are no Blue\Ebony cars in the last run so in that regard your in the last run for that color combo.

Joe5.0

Thats cool info, thanks a bunch. Thats kinda cool that I have the last Aegean blue/Ebony 6 speed made.