Small cars and SUVs are driving growth in the Australian new car market, as local car makers push these types of vehicles to try to make up for the sluggish sales in large cars, writes Trish Whelan from Adelaide.
Sales figures from the Automotive Industry show the Mazda3 and Toyota's Hilux are top sellers with the locally built Commodore in third place during March.
It seems SUV sales are booming and you can see them everywhere here, up 18.4 per cent on last year for the same period, according to the local daily Advertiser paper.
For the year to date, sales are at 260,122 vehicles, which represents a 4.7 per cent increase on the same point in 2011.
Australians buy cars that best meet their lifestyle and budget and so SUVs continue to dominate Australian car sales. They would scoff at a 1.0 car here, even just for city use.
Meanwhile, the giant GM Holden car maker was recently bailed out to the tune of $275 million in taxpayer funds which will allow the company to continue to manufacture its cars here until at least 2022. The SA state has contributed $50 million while the Federal government gave $215 million. In return, GM Holden pledged to make cars for global sales rather than to just target the Australian market.
Interestingly, the local Advertiser paper in Adelaide, as well as the evening TV news, give the locations of the follow day's police speed cameras 'in the interests of road safety'.
