Aussie muscle car prices stall

MOTOR has been tracking prices of the final locally made performance sedans (and ute) to leave both Ford’s Broadmeadows plant and, recently, Holden’s Elizabeth manufacturing facility, and it seems supply is outstripping used car demand across all models.

The 20 currently advertised Commodore Motorsport Editions include prices ranging from $66,500 to $86,000 – while a single example is listed for a cheeky $100,000. The 1200 sedan-only were priced between $61,790 (manual) and $63,990 (automatic) plus on-roads.

However, few are moving, with two examples at one western Sydney auction house – now with a mid-$70,000 fixed price listing – sitting idle for weeks. Despite such outlets being a typical way for dealers to buy used cars, neither dealers or the buying public have yet banked on the green auto and white manual sedans, despite weekly auctions for other cars.

A trio of Magnum utes are online commanding between $75,000 and $95,000 as well – however these have likewise been static advertisements for weeks for the 240-unit limited edition that sold new for between $59,290 (manual) and $61,490 (auto) plus on-roads.

A total of 11 advertisements for a new Calais-based Director sedan, produced in 360 units for $63,990 with auto only, have failed to yet garner asking prices of $75,000 to $95,000.

Those looking to make a fast profit from the Holden limited editions will be hoping that they don’t follow the immediate trend of the Ford specials. Despite closing its plants over one year ago, 50 examples of the Falcon XR6 Sprint and Falcon XR8 Sprint remain out to tempt buyers on the used market, with over half (26) of them brand new.

The 550 units of XR6 Sprint were priced from $54,990 plus on-roads, while the 850 units of XR8 Sprint commanded between $59,990 (manual) and $62,090 (auto) when new.

However, there are examples online for $5000 below those figures, with a few thousand kilometres on the clock. Some buyers are asking $70,000-plus for examples with a clean set of digits on the odometer, but these have not been going anywhere on the market.

The question now is, will the price of these final Commodore and Falcon limited editions really skyrocket? As it stands, it appears several ‘investors’ were overly optimistic about resale values soon after the purchase of these last Australian-built performance cars.