Used car prices aren’t dropping like a rat down a drainpipe but you won’t even get an offer on your Holden Caprice, and if you trying to sell a SUV, commercial or high-end vehicle don’t cry when the offers come in.
On the other hand, the average mum and dad/dad and dad/ mum and mum cars are a bit more stable.
Like other non-essential items (ie: anything you don’t need to survive) the recession everyone is pretending we don’t have is biting.
Car usage is down because petrol prices are high. Despite EVs, domestic electricity usage is down (not because everyone has gone green but because it costs a lot). And, of course, EV sales have peaked.
Supply of new and used cars is going up. Manufacturers have more coming out of the factory and working Australians need the money and are selling petrol and electricity guzzlers.
And the reality is, the violence on our roads is frightening. Just ask any highway patrol cop. Post-Covid the road rules don’t matter anymore. A 2022 study by Amanda Stephens and others from Monash University concluded that: “Aggressive driving is a significant road safety problem and is likely to get worse as the situations that provoke aggression become more prevalent in the road network and driver frustration and stress, also recognised as triggers for aggression, are likely to stay high because of the Covid-19 pandemic and associated burdens, leading to increased aggression.”
“The most common themes,” Amanda wrote, “were that drivers were taking more risks, driving faster, and exhibiting more aggression. A common theme was that drivers had become more impatient, more aggressive towards cyclists and less observant of road rules.”
Talking of aggressive driving, Mad Max topped the field in the first day of F1 testing this week, then the Fezzer team won the second day but who knows who is sandbagging.
On day two the leaderboard looked like this: Sainz in Ferrari, Perez in Red Bull, the Hamster in a Merc, Lando in the McLaren and Dan Ricciardo in the Visa Cash App RB Formula One.
Of course, the real star, as in Las Vegas, was the drain cover. Chuck ran his Feezer over the drain cover showering turn 11 with debris. Then Hamo ran over it and Chuck thought why not and ran over it for the second time. No doubt season six of Drive to Survive will interview both the Las Vegas and Bahrain drain covers.
Not to be a Drive to Survive spoiler but the Daily Mail tells us Daniel Ricciardo convinced Christian Horner to give him a second chance. Dan drove some impressive laps at Silverstone.
So impressive that the Hornster tells Dan: “That lap you just did would have put you next to Max on the grid. Welcome back on the team, just don’t f---ing crash it.”
Talking of consumer issues and as you know we are the CF, the Chinese electric car maker BYD sold over three million vehicles last year making it the fastest growing automaker in the world, beating Tesla and making much better looking (designed by a former Audi architect) metal.
Forget about Bahrain, the most exciting race for a very long time was up on the mountain last weekend. The Bathurst 12 Hour saw “the mountain going international as the best GT3 drivers in the world fight for glory!”. How international? Well 45-year-old Valentino Rossi, nine-time Grand Prix motorcycle racing World Champion and ice cream shop owner, came in fifth, and the winner, our very own Matty Campbell had Belgian professional racing driver Laurens Vanthoor and Turkey’s own Ayhancan Güven as backup.
The track was dry, then it was wet, then it was sort of dry wet and then there were fantastic crashes and then there were safety cars and Matty and his international band kept the Porker out the front. (I guess he doesn’t take it to a Porsche dealer for service.)
Also, up on the mountain were one of our favourite racers and ralliers, Grant Denyer, our favourite team owner, Garth Walden and someone we’d like to know, Prince Jefri Ibrahim, of Malaysia.
In other top racing news, Round 1 of the 2024 Mzda MX-5 Cup saw a win by the Mad Max of the south coast of NSW, Tim Herring because your correspondent had pulled up lame.
Talking of manufacturers apart from Hyundai and SsangYong, Toyota immediately fixed a problem for Cairns reader James Collins.
Jimbo had bought a 2017 LandCruiser Sahara from a Toyota dealership in July 2023. Since then, the leather trim on the steering wheel disintegrated in his hands. That’s a $2334 problem right there. Anyway, as soon as head office heard about Big Jim’s wheel, they fixed it, not like Hyundai and SsangYong.
And talking of Porkers, Gooding & Co are auctioning off some of the factory racing team at next weekend’s Amelia Island champagne up. Expect to pay somewhere over $2m for a 2019 Porsche 935 – a rare and ultra-exclusive factory-built track only tribute to the original 935 race cars.
You know the 935. In the 1977 season, Porsche offered the 935 to customers entering the Work Championship for Makes and the IMSA GT Championship. Its 935 went on to win Le Mans overall and then Sebring, Daytona, and the 1000 km Nürburgring.
This one, with only delivery kilometres, wears an optional factory-applied grey paint-protection wrap with the Martini livery and – wait for it – aircon.
And if you aren’t watching the NRL in Las Vegas then head to Cockatoo Island for the Sydney Harbour Concours d’Elegance to see a few specials like the 1964 Ferrari 250 LM, a rare Lancia Flaminia SS Zagato and a 1930 Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 GT brought from San Marino, Italy especially for the Concours, a 1937 Bugatti Type 57 and the first ever right-hand drive Porsche, a 1951 356 Cabriolet.
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