Commodore, Falcon sales lowest in decades

The Holden Commodore is expected to be confirmed as Australia's favourite car for a record 14 years in a row when official sales figures for 2009 are released by the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries on midday Wednesday -- but it will be somewhat of a hollow victory.

The Commodore sales tally which is understood to be just shy of 45,000 will be the second lowest figure for the nameplate in its 31-year history.

The lowest recorded full-year sales tally for Commodore was in 1983, in the era of the VH Commodore, when just 35,355 were sold.

The highest recorded full-year sales tally for Commodore was in 1998 -- in the model's 20th anniversary year -- when a staggering 94,642 Commodores were sold.

But the reality is that sales of Australia's favourite car have been in a steady descent for the past decade.

In 2008 Holden sold a little more than 51,000 Commodores but the 2009 result of slightly less than 45,000 sales is expected to amount to a drop of about 12 per cent.

While not confirming the final sales tally for the year until the embargo on information is lifted, Holden spokesman Scott Whiffin told the Carsales Network: "I don't think anybody's claiming that it hasn't been a mighty tough year for the Australian automotive industry but as far as Holden is concerned we're pretty happy with the momentum we've developed in the back half of 2009 and Commodore's a big part of that story. We'll wait until the final figures are officially released before we say any more."

Ford won't exactly be doing hand stands either. Sales figures are expected to show that the tally for the Falcon dipped by a lower percentage than the Commodore for the year -- about 4 per cent -- but the final result of about 31,000 sales is expected to come close to equalling the Falcon's previous lowest result on record: 31,936 set in 2007.

Both cars are far from extinction, however, as the large sedans and wagons are only a part of the total production output for both brands.

Holden supplements the Commodore's production with utes and the luxury Statesman and Caprice models, and is planning to build a hatchback version of its Cruze small car later this year.

Ford supplements the Falcon's production with utes and the Territory soft-roader. It was going to build the Ford Focus small car from 2011 but those plans have been scrapped.

Toyota's Aurion V6 sedan is the weakest seller of the locally made large cars. It is expected to post about 14,000 sales -- a 30 per cent drop on the previous year.

However, Aurion production is supplemented by Camry production, which outsells the Aurion by almost two-to-one. Furthermore, and perhaps more significant, Toyota exports more than two-thirds of the cars its makes locally.

In the two full years leading up to the closure of Mitsubishi's Adelaide factory in 2008, Mitsubishi sold 12,500 and 11,000 of its V6 sedans in 2006 and 2007 respectively. The difference, however, is that Mitsubishi's factory didn't build anything else to help amortise its spiralling costs.

Read the latest Carsales Network news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at www.carsales.mobi