The Australian Auto Market was steady for 2006 and continued its strong run of 10 years by achieving its second best year on record. A stable Government, strong economy and a general feeling of wealth all contributed to the strong sales result.
Looking at the numbers closely and we start to see some changes that occurred in several market segments as the impact from the fuel crisis took its toll on the more fuel inefficient large passenger vehicles and raised the sales volume of smaller cars.
Domestic sales volume now makes up about 20% of all sales and will possibly diminish more as the consumers buy more imported fuel efficient cars and turn away from the Australian Designed ‘family cars’.
Much development effort over the past several years has gone into producing high performance vehicles that handle to ‘European standards’ to attract the fast money. Cars that today are less relevant than a few years ago as fuel prices bite the boy racers wallet. This has possibly been at the expense of developing a locally built diesel engine. It is hard to believe that Ford or GMH have not seen fit to offer a diesel alternative to their line up of petrol engines. Once again they are caught flat footed as the market changes are moving away from their offer.
