New Zealand Car Sales By Brand : 1975-84

A 1975 Austin 1300. Very popular in NZ

Getting sales data for this period for NZ car sales is a challenge. I did manage to put this together and it gives an insight into what was going on and it was a time of great change. The NZ market had a high import duty on fully built up cars, so assembly from kits (CKD) was the only way to sell in any numbers.

In 1978 Japan became the main source of new cars, overtaking the UK where the car industry was failing due to underinvestment. For GM, the emphasis went on Holden and Vauxhall was phased out. Hillman was replaced by Mitsubishi and Honda took over from BLMC. As factories switched their source, sudden shifts in volume occurred. Japanese success also affected smaller assemblers such as VW as well.

BLMC had been the biggest company in 1975 but soon slumped as Honda profited greatly when the assembler switched to that brand. Mitsubishi's leap from 1975 to 1980 was mirrored by the fall of Hillman. The artificial assembly situation created a sudden swing to Asia as can be seen by the colours below.

One thing you cannot see in the chart was how Ford was changing too. It had been sourcing cars from the UK but was changing to Mazda cars, which started being assembled instead. Ford had recently taken a share of Mazda and rebadged some of its cars to be sold as Ford's in certain regions of the world.

	Brand	1975	1980	1983	1984
	Ford	15,374	15,144	15,964	20,730
	Mitsubishi	1,425	13,620	12,240	15,235
	Toyota	6,858	12,174	8,931	14,949
	Honda	841	7,675	10,161	10,598
	Holden/GM	7,576	6,882	8,537	10,155
	Nissan	6,778	5,613	7,483	9,428
	Mazda	3,864	4,510	5,075	7,151
	Subaru	154	1,264	1,516	2,334
	Daihatsu	136	192	1,052	1,550
	Suzuki	43	95	633	910
	Lada		203	305	595
	Hyundai			236	576
	Fiat	501	169	165	560
	BLMC	16,215	3,964	164	264
	BMW		49	196	211
	Audi		63	157	169
	Renault	539	48	458	150
	Peugeot	479	82	77	131
	Volvo		62	203	104
	Alfa Romeo		144	130	92
	Mercedes	137	88	74	78
	Citroen	129	49	69	68
	Talbot			134	64
	Hillman	8,946	1,480
	Vauxhall	5,413	1,404
	Chrysler	1,970	560
	Škoda	808	124
	VW	662
	Others	853	108	117	316
	Total	79,701	75,766	74,077	96,418

Picture Source: KiwiMotoring.

For sales from 1984-89, just click here.