Holden buyers missing out

It is practically impossible to lay hands on a Holden Director, the limited edition model based on the Calais V.

And the Magnum Ute is virtually gone for good also.

Melbourne-based dealers have told motoring.com.au this week that only the Motorsport Edition, based on the Commodore SS V Redline, is still available. But that's only in small numbers, due mainly to 'fall-overs' – the buyer bailing out of the sale contract.

All of this is in spite of transaction prices significantly higher than the MRLP (Manufacturer’s Recommended List Price) for the limited-edition cars.

It's not unprecedented, with sales of Ford's Mustang proving to be quite lucrative for dealers also.

Selling cars for transaction prices above the MRLP is not illegal, as the 'R' in MRLP indicates.

It can leave a sour taste in the mouth of the customer, although for every buyer who feels 'ripped off', there's at least another who is just about willing to hand over his (or her) first-born or a spare appendage for one of the limited-edition models.

"There's obviously a lot of passion out there for them, and what we're seeing a lot of is customers coming in and saying: 'I'll pay whatever you want'," says Sean Poppitt, Holden's Director of Communications.

The transaction prices for the Director seemed to vary by a few thousand dollars from one dealership to the next.

"It's about [$73,000] on the road, when we worked it out," one Holden salesperson told motoring.com.au. "We sold our one ages ago."

"As far as I'm aware, everyone has sold out of the Director… I'm pretty sure we sold our Director for [$76,000 or $77,000]..." said another salesperson, who offered the Motorsport Edition for "similar sort of pricing."

Due to rumours and speculation, most of the limited-edition stock had been ordered in advance by "September, October last year".

"The only reason why anyone has any Motorsports now is from people who didn't expect the price to be so high, so they've pulled out," said the second salesperson.

In fairness to Holden and its dealers, both the automatic Motorsport Edition and the Director are priced so close to the Luxury Car Tax threshold of $64,132 that just one option could tip the price of the car over into luxury car territory.

One of the sales staff speaking to motoring.com.au revealed that the dealership was receiving calls from interstate buyers and dealers trying to track down a Director. The production run for the Director is fewer than the number of Holden dealers in the Australian network – and dealer principals have been particularly drawn to the Director, one salesperson revealed. So it's not altogether surprising that few buyers off the street have been able to purchase one.

"A dealer principal who might be a second or third-generation Holden person, they're as deserving a customer for those kind of [cars] as anyone. They've put as much blood, sweat and tears into the brand as anyone," says Poppitt.

Given the seemingly huge demand for the limited edition models, did Holden miscue, keeping the numbers so small? Poppitt says no.

"What's the point in being 'limited edition' if you just build more?" he asked rhetorically.

"The whole point of this was to build a small batch to really recognise the people that worked on them, our engineering heritage, our manufacturing heritage. The whole point for us was to have them as genuine, small-number limited editions."

Even bread-and-butter models produced in Holden's Elizabeth plant are in short supply, and with production ending from October 20 this year, time is running out to snap up one of the final, iconic pieces of Aussie motoring history.

"We would absolutely recommend that people go and see their dealer ASAP to try and secure [a locally-built Holden] – particularly a V8," says Poppitt.

"If people walk into a dealership in July or August expecting to buy a V8, the chances are they may be disappointed.

One of the sales staff admitted having just one Redline and six SV6s to sell over the remainder of 2017 – and February has only just begun. Could Holden ramp up production to take advantage of that high demand? Even opening up a limited second shift?

"No, it's not cost-effective… we'd be losing bucketloads of cash to put additional shifts on to sell a nominal, additional amount of cars," Poppitt explained.

Another salesperson offered the view that "the V8 stuff is going to disappear very fast, unfortunately."

Poppitt supports that view. The sales split is turning in favour of V8 models, with the large-displacement variants nearing 50 per cent of share in these final months, as Poppitt's colleague Peter Keley predicted at the end of 2015. It's not quite there yet, however.

"Might be somewhere between 40 and 50 [per cent] potentially," Poppitt says.

The surge in sales will leave Holden with almost no locally-manufactured inventory into 2018. And that was the plan from the start, says the Holden spokesman.

"There may be the odd one, but given the demand that we're seeing, and given how quickly they're moving, it would be highly unlikely that there's much left running into 2018."

"We'd always planned to finish 2017 with basically all cars finished – and we'll launch next-gen [imported Commodore] late January, early February, so we'd expect throughout January to clear the last of the '17s and be fresh for the next-gen from late Jan [or] February 2018."