Yes Roadster Gets the Nod in the U.S.

If nothing else, obscure German sports-car manufacturer Yes has subliminal messaging going for it. The company's quirky name — which it spells in all caps with an exclamation point at the end — could compel Americans to consider buying one of its $77,995 convertibles scheduled to hit showrooms in June.

YES! — I’ll take one.

The small two-seater is appealing enough on its own, though, and could be a sign of things to come from larger automakers.

"It could be the future of sports cars in the U.S. in terms of Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards," says Erich Merkle, vice president of forecasting at IRN, an automotive research firm in Grand Rapids, Mich. By 2020, manufacturers’ entire model lineups must average 35 miles per gallon to comply with the recently passed Clean Energy Act that mandates higher fuel economy standards.

The 1,960-pound Yes Roadster 3.2 isn’t an outright gas miser, but the 255 horsepower its Volkswagen/Audi-sourced V6 engine puts out is more than enough to create scorching performance in line with far more powerful and expensive sports cars — most of which guzzle gas.

Basically, the car is as fast as Ferraris and Lamborghinis but more than twice as fuel efficient: It does 0-60 miles per hour in 4.8 seconds and averages an estimated 25 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving.

The pricier Yes Roadster 3.2 Turbo ($97,995) is even faster: It hits 60 mph in about 4.3 seconds, thanks to a turbocharger that boosts engine output to 355 hp. As usual, the added power reduces fuel economy, in this case by an estimated 3 mpg compared to the base Roadster 3.2.

The dark-horse Yes Roadster seems like a long shot for success in North America, but established automakers will imitate its formula for efficient speed, sources say.

"Automakers, even the Big Three [Chrysler, Ford and General Motors], will look for ways to get more out of less, and ways to maintain power-to-weight ratios,” Merkle says. “Look at the Corvette ZR1. In 10 or 15 years, will they be able to have 600 horsepower? We’ll see smaller displacement engines and lighter-weight bodies."

The Initial Nod

The Yes Roadster started as a thesis project by German engineering students Herbert Funke and Philipp Will, which led to a prototype prepared for the 1999 Frankfurt Auto Show.

Spurred by rave reviews at the show, the two founded Funke & Will AG, set up shop in an aircraft hangar near Dresden, Germany, and started hand building 50 YES! cars a year.

The company’s exuberant name is an acronym for “Young Engineers Sportscar.”

The first models had smaller engines than the one soon to go on sale in the United States. The Roadster 1.8, Clubsport 1.8 and a race car called the CUP/R all had four-cylinder turbocharged engines.

The goal was to create a true race-bred sports car, and they succeeded with the Clubsport , which had no doors, roof or side glass. In an effort to distill the driving experience to its purest form, Funke and Will omitted electronic traction controls on all of their models.

The Yes Roadster "comes off as a [Lotus] Elise as done by Germans,” says Ed Kim, director of industry analysis at AutoPacific in Southfield, Mich. The Lotus Elise is a lightweight British sports car that uses a small Toyota engine to attain superlative performance while averaging 24 mpg city/29 mpg highway.

The latest YES! Roadster grew out of a realization that the car needed to be more practical for daily use, says Ingolf Hainich, the company’s head of sales. It also had to be updated to meet current safety standards.

So the second-generation model looks a lot like the first but is longer and heavier and includes anti-lock brakes as a safety concession. To keep the Yes as close to its minimalist roots as possible, stability control, an important safety feature, remains absent.

Hainich says the Yes Roadster is still “more about driving than luxury,” but options like a navigation system and seat heaters are available.

The Yes Roadster has a removable soft top that must folded up and stored in the front trunk. There is a modest amount of luggage room left over.

An optional three-piece hardtop can be installed and removed by the dealer seasonally.

Yes will soon announce its North American dealer network, Hainich says.

Arnd Sunner, Yes’ head of marketing, says North American sales will ramp up from the miniscule 50 units planned for 2008 to a still-tiny 120 in three years.

Yea or Nay in North America?

Analysts are split on whether Yes will succeed in the United States. The Roadster 3.2 is priced about the same as the Porsche 911 Carrera Coupe, which is larger and more powerful but less fuel efficient.

However, both the base and turbocharged Yes Roadsters are considerably more expensive than similar mainstream models from Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. The Audi TT Roadster 3.2, which uses virtually the same engine as the Yes Roadster 3.2, costs $32,095 less; but it's also 1,258 pounds heavier and therefore slower in the 0-60 mile-per-hour sprint by a significant margin (0.7 seconds) and about 4 miles per gallon less fuel efficient on average.

AutoPacific’s Kim says there’s enough of a “boutique, enthusiast car crowd” to fulfill the company’s sales goal in the United States. “That’s not high volume, and probably attainable,” he says. “It’ll appeal to club racers, but as a car used on the street, it’ll be a tough sell.”

Poor name recognition and questions over the brand's perceived quality versus other noted German automakers, as well as where to service the vehicles could be obstacles to YES!'s success, Kim says.

Others don't feel that scant availability will lessen the company’s chances. "It'll sell here," says IRN’s Merkle. "People will have a hard time finding it, some will travel to get it, but car aficionados will dig deep to find it."

Art Spinella, president of CNW Marketing Research in Bandon, Ore., is bullish about the cars. "It’ll be strong at first, bought by folks who want something different,” he says. But he’s skeptical of sales growth after the first year.

AutoPacific's Kim agrees. “Interest has fallen off almost every roadster except the Mazda Miata,” he says. Ultimately, “it depends on how committed they are to getting the word out.”

At least "Yes!" is a fun word to get out.