Luxury car tax a hurdle for local non-ute programs, ruling out Volkswagen Atlas SUV and other models
An expansion of Volkswagen Australia’s partnership with local engineering, design and vehicle conversion specialist Walkinshaw Group into segments other than utes is unlikely, with luxury car tax making it difficult for the economics of a passenger car or SUV program to add up.
With the first-generation Volkswagen Amarok W580 program having been completed and its potential successor years away, building on the success of the partnership isn’t an easy task, according to the two parties.
“I think you’d never say never,” said Volkswagen Australia Commercial Vehicles Director, Ryan Davies.
“But the reality is that there has to be an opportunity in our range that would work and I’d say that with our passenger vehicle range [including SUVs], we’ve got a good suite of variants that fill that void.”
Walkinshaw Group CEO Ryan Walkinshaw explained that the luxury car tax (LCT) factor applied to passenger vehicles quickly renders most programs unviable.
“The difficulty always with any of these programs going outside the ute market is being stung with luxury car tax. Coming to someone like us is going to add additional cost to the retail value of the product,” Walkinshaw said.
“When you go to passenger cars or an SUV, that additional cost is compounded with luxury car tax, which hurts, or 99 per cent of the time we’ve looked at it, kills programs pretty quickly which is unfortunate.”
One potential option would be for Walkinshaw to convert the US-market Volkswagen Atlas large SUV from left- to right-hand drive to compete with the Jeep Grand Cherokee L and Toyota LandCruiser.
But with the standard vehicle almost guaranteed to be priced above the $71,849 LCT threshold, Walkinshaw’s conversion costs would also attract a 33 per cent surcharge, expanding the price exponentially.
LCT was a key factor that led to the HSV-converted Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 price tag ballooning from $US63,435 Stateside (2017) to $159,990 locally.
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://editorial.pxcrush.net/carsales/general/editorial/scott-newman-500×500-close.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Scott Newman[/author_info] [/author]
