The Real Picture
Ford has made great play over its pricing policy when announcing the price of its performance Focus ST. The rival to the VW GTI, Subaru WRX and others is ‘competively priced’ at $39,290 plus on road costs when it goes on sale in October. Sure, it does have a price advantage over its main competition, but that’s not the whole picture.
We’ve complained bitterly before about the huge premium that Australian car buyers have to pay against their overseas counterparts (see the comparison chart here). The new Ford Focus ST is no exception. It’s a brand new car, so the old excuses of ‘exchange rates’ or ‘Luxury Car Tax’ (it doesn’t reach the threshold) can’t be trotted out. Yet it still imposes a massive sixty eight percent premium over the US$23,700 price charged to Americans.
Level 2, 9 Help Street
teja says:
this overpricing so disgusting!….I can’t beleive its been a year since your “big price ripp off revealed” article was published and there has been no movement on the subject at all by the idiots in parliment and the ACCC
August 6th, 2012 at 7:17 am
Steve says:
How about an answer from a 20 year veteran of the motor industry…..USA sells over 1 million cars a month..12 million plus a year, Australia sells 80 thousand a month or 1 million a year! No brainer! Also a lot of vehicles manufactured in the US so no import duty or tariff and the workers get paid a lot less than their Aussie counterparts. So to all the people complaining buy an Australian built car and keep an Australian employed.
August 22nd, 2012 at 3:50 pm