2012 - annus horribilis for Australian made cars

[Resurrection]

Early in the new year the uniformed media will be preaching to the masses how good 2012 was with another 1 million plus new vehicles sold. What will be missed is the new lows the Australian made cars have reached.

Ford will sell lesss then 20,000 Falcon sedans which is a new all time low in the 52 year history of the model. The Commodore will just break 30,000 sales for the year which is the lowest for this model since the name was released in 1978. In the Kingswood name never sold so few in a calendar year. I suspect the last time Holden so few of their main model was back in the 1950s. Toyota is have to resort to incentives like 0% financing to entice buyers to their Camry/Aurion models.

The question is will 2013 see a recovery for these three? Only Holden has something significantly new in the pipeline for next year but this is not due until the 2nd half of the year. Ford and Toyota have nothing big planned so will continue to battle with the same models.

I hope for the sake of all people employed by these three companies and their suppliers that the trend in sales of Australian made cars is reversed in 2013. I used to be one of these people.