Leaked: ACCC shake-up for vehicle trim levels

The era of evocative trim-level names for new cars may be drawing to a close – in Australia at least – if the ACCC gets its way.

An anonymous source has told motoring.com.au that one of the more controversial findings in the ACCC's new-car retailing study indicates buyers are confused by the plethora of trim levels for new cars. The authors of the report have proposed just four mandated trim levels, applied universally across the entire new-car market.

Information to hand suggests the four grades will be L, GL, GLX and GLXT. It's understood that the proposal was inspired by the Australian government's successful plain-paper cigarette packaging legislation.

If accepted, the proposal will do away with well-known but opaque grade names such as Ambiente, VTi, Sport, GT and Highlander. According to the ACCC's person on the inside, the standardised grading system will clear up endless confusion as to which offers more kit (and enhanced social standing), rather than expecting consumers to understand the inherent value (or otherwise) of cars labelled 'Active', 'Trend', 'Allure' or 'Ultima'.

The problem arising out of the proposal is that some model names/numbers implicitly include the level of trim. So where a BMW 320i is the base model to the upmarket 330i, the prestige brand may be called upon in Australia to rename those two cars as '3 Series L' and '3 Series GL' accordingly.

Naturally, that would flow through to the entire BMW range, and could potentially spell havoc for additional trim and drivetrain identifiers such as 'sDrive25i'. Other brands affected along similar lines would be the other German prestige brands, Audi and Mercedes-Benz. And it would pose a further challenge for car companies that distinguish sport models from their luxury counterparts in a 'Y' structure.

In another example of the syndrome, the Holden Evoke would be named Commodore GL, except it's understood the ACCC has no plans to introduce the new protocol until the remaining local manufacturing plants have closed.

There's a real risk that the in-house counsel employed by the car companies (and the FCAI) will be very busy taking the ACCC to court.

And with rumour flying around that limited-edition models would be exempt, expect the traditional model hierarchy to give way to a 'moving feast' range structure composed entirely of 'special value pack' models in future.

This article was published on the morning of April 1, 2017 and is not to be taken seriously.