New car sales should pass the seven-figure mark this weekend, reports Joshua Dowling.
If Australians keep buying new cars at the rate they’ve been buying them all year, the millionth new vehicle should be sold some time this weekend.
But it will be impossible to determine who bought the millionth car because the figures are not collated until the end of the month – and new cars are not necessarily recorded in the order they are sold.
Australia has never sold a million new cars in a calendar year before. The highest number to date – 988,269 – was tallied two years ago. Last year saw a slight dip in sales but the market remained strong.
So far, sales have been well ahead of any previous year. Indeed, by the end of November Australians had already bought more new cars in 11 months than they did in all of 2006.
“Based on our calculations we expect the millionth car to be sold some time this weekend,” the senior executive director of sales and marketing at Toyota Australia, David Buttner, told Drive.
“And we think the total market will reach between about 1,040,000 and 1,050,000 sales by the end of December.”
He said rising interest rates and the federal election did not dampen consumer confidence.
“Many people wonder aloud how this is possible in an election year and, more to the point, with rising interest rates. Certainly, the economy has been solid, and the strong Australian dollar has helped contain price increases on imported vehicles.”
Buttner said the industry expected car sales to remain strong in 2008, too, with several important new models due, including a new version of Australia’s second-biggest selling large sedan, the Ford Falcon.
“Next year we are expecting the total market to be about the same size – around one million. It may be 1,040,000 or 1,050,000, something like that,” he said.
“That will largely be driven … by some significant new models, including Falcon, which should further [boost] the large-car market.”
He warned, however, that interest rates, the currency and the outcome of the Federal Government’s review of the automotive industry (due mid-year) were “unknown factors” which had the potential to dent sales.
New car sales are strong because cars have become safer, more fuel-efficient, better equipped and more affordable than ever before. For example, he said, five years ago a $30,000 Toyota Camry had basic features. Today, the same money buys a Camry with about $4000 worth of extra comfort and safety features.
By Toyota’s calculations, if car prices had kept pace with inflation, the basic Camry would cost about $35,000 – not taking into account the extra equipment.
A similar example applies to other models, including the most basic Hyundai, one of the cheapest cars on the market. The Getz S three-door is $13,990 with air-conditioning, CD player, dual airbags, power steering, power windows and mirrors, and remote central locking. Two years ago the same car was $2000 dearer and had less equipment.
As expected, with the rising cost of petrol, sales of city cars (or “light” cars as the industry defines them) are up 10 per cent and small cars are up by 6 per cent in the first 11 months of this year compared with the same period last year. But the big surprise is that sales of medium-sized four-wheel-drives have grown at the same rate as smaller and more-fuel efficient soft-roaders.
Figures from the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries show that sales of both compact and mid-sized 4WDs grew by 20 per cent. By comparison, sales of large cars (the Holden Commodore and Ford Falcon class) grew by a modest 3.4 per cent.
Story originally published 15 December, 2007
So, what happened next?
Australians did indeed buy over one million cars in 2007, the final figure – boosted by record sales of 86,500 in December – resting at 1,049,982, an increase of 9.1 per cent over 2006.
The Holden Commodore was the number one-selling car in Australia, the 12th year in a row the large family sedan finished on top of the charts with sales of 57,307. Toyota had second- and third-best selling vehicles of 2007, Corolla with sales of 47,792 while the HiLux ute enjoyed sales of 42,009, signalling the first time a ute had finished in the top three.
Mazda 3 (34,393) ended the year in fourth ahead of Ford Falcon (33,941), the Blue Oval’s rival to the Holden Commodore dropping 20 per cent year-on-year to record a historic low.
The one-million-plus result started a trend where Aussies bought in excess of a million cars almost every year since, the exceptions the GFC-hit 2009 (937,328) and Covid-ravaged 2020, where only
916,968 new cars found homes, the lowest number since 2003.| Year | New car sales |
| 2008 | 1,012,164 |
| 2009 | 937,328 |
| 2010 | 1,035,574 |
| 2011 | 1008,437 |
| 2012 | 1,112,032 |
| 2013 | 1,136,227 |
| 2014 | 1,113,224 |
| 2015 | 1,155,408 |
| 2016 | 1,178,133 |
| 2017 | 1,189,116 (all-time record) |
| 2018 | 1,153,111 |
| 2019 | 1,062,867 |
| 2020 | 916,968 (lowest since 2003) |
The post 25 Years of Drive: 2007, the first time Aussies bought a million new cars appeared first on Drive.
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