>>3522Holden and Ford had been selling miserably here for a decade, and had been getting money from the government to simply exist. When the new government came in, they said that had to stop; no free rides, so Ford, Toyota and Holden all said "nope, fuck that, we're out" and announced the end of production in Australia. And sure, the government insists that Toyota was discussing wrapping up production before they got in, but the denial of support payments was the trigger. What I learned long after it was over is that it all cost Australians about $18 each. Not that much, but I wish FordAU and GMAU had used the money for something better then their shitty plastic, prone to breaking, obese yachts. They were barely muscle cars anymore.
As a result, Australia has no locally built cars anymore. The Falcon wraps up at the end of this year, as does the Territory (same platform), giving way to the Mustang, and the Commodore will be replaced by an American built version of the same, but all of it's variants including the Caprice, Senator, etc, have all been axed, so it'll be equivalent to the Chevy Malibu only now. (Which means the government needs to find new luxury vehicles now), and who the fuck cares about what Toyota is doing.
So yeah, it's not the greatest.
On the side though, if you want a real value appreciator, grab a new Falcon XR8. They're only making 16K of them, I had heard, and that'll be sure to appreciate in value in 30 years. (The sad part for me is that the new Falcon is actually good looking, and had someone taken a scalpel to it and peeled back the fat, it'd be sexy. In reality though, it's an attempt to stylistically merge into the Mondeo, which will replace it.)
Also, I'm still waiting for Chrysler to fulfill their promise to step in and fill the gap left by our local manufacturing with the Charger.