It’s a mixture of enthusiasm and conspicuous consumption. Most enthusiasts love 90s japanese cars, but the average person sees an old mazda and recoils.
But put an old ferrari in front of anyone and they have a completely different reaction.
There's no million dollar Japanese supercars competing against Lamborghinis and McLarens, but I wouldn't say they stopped making sports cars.
Well there was the NSX
The WRX has a turbocharged Boxer engine, manual gearbox or optional CVT, and all-wheel drive. It’s a sedan, but it does a 13.9 second quarter mile stock off the showroom floor. That’s not bad.
The FRS/BRZ/GR86 are identical cars mechanically, Toyota owns Scion, so the FRS was replaced by the GT86 and later GR86 within the Toyota line-up when Toyota killed off the Scion brand in the US, and the FRS never existed outside the North American market, because Scion was a North American exclusive brand.
The BRZ/GR86 has a Subaru Boxer engine, with Toyota D4S Port+Direct Injection, using a Toyota ECU/ECM, Toyota/Aisin transmission, Toyota TCU/TCM, and Toyota infotainment (in some generations), but with a mostly Subaru designed chassis and nearly entirely Subaru suspension and post-transmission driveline, but the wheels and tires off a Prius (in the first generation), and a handful of things that were only created to be jointly used by the BRZ/GR86. Except no matter which part you pick on the car, it'll be marked "Subaru", including ironically the Toyota badge on the front of the GT86.
It's better to think of them as what they are, which is different branding for the same vehicle, that was jointly developed and manufactured.
The comment I was replying to said that people buy porsches because they’re beautiful.
That’s not it, because the NSX is beautiful, the LFA is beautiful, the FD is beautiful, but nobody wants to spend 200K on a Toyota.
Cars are a signifier, and the viewer needs to understand that sign. Luxury car makers bank on that. Put an LFA and a Cayman next to each other and 9/10 people would think the Cayman is worth more.
The original commenters idea works for content, because content is not a signifier of money. Rich people can’t have more expensive media taste than you, so the enthusiasts set the pace.
But they can have a more expensive car, so no matter how awful a car a lamborghini is, nobody envies the Integra type R next to it.
The Japanese economy continued to grow until the mid 1990s. I think the real culprit was low birth rate in the prior 20 years did not train the next generation of productive workers. China, South Korea most of Europe face similar issues
My girlfriend thinks my cheap modern shitbox is more expensive than my old 90's 4x4 truck.
GTRs absolutely do not stand out. They look like your your average sedan.
The average person who doesn't know much about cars will think a second generation MR2 is more exotic than it is. Toyota probably wouldn't make their top three brand guesses. The R34 GT-R will thrill every car enthusiast (and probably everyone who had a Playstation around the turn of the millennium), but most people won't give it a second look.