First I have to say Congrats to Kevin, who just got his new 2006 GTO with 400 hp and 6 spd.I'm insanely jealous, and very happy for him. Now I want to know why Ford can't bring the Falcon here from Australia.
This thing is evil in so many ways, it's hard to know where to start. But lets start with the I-6 Turbo putting out over 450 hp!
Kevin's new GTO, based on the Aussie Holden Monaro and sold here as a Pontiac. IRS, 6.0 L V8 with 400 hp and a six speed manual.
The leater interior is far from cheap, it's a first class interior for a world class Muscle Car.
6.0 L V-8 from the Vette, makes this thing really scream.
Now why can't I get a Falcon with the blown 5.4 L V8 ?
3 comments:
Well, you could privately import one.
There's at least one company here that imports current-shape Mustangs, coverts them from LHD to RHD and then sells them. I believe a similar-spec to yours for AUD$88,000 and V8 GTs are more like AUD$120,000. I don't want to think about what a Saleen costs.
As a comparison a Monaro goes for about AUD$60,000 and a V8 Falcon GT is about AUD$75K. Supercharging it would probably be about another $8k.
An XR6 Turbo would be cheaper ($48k?) and easier to extract bulk power from, IMO, plus you would get the satisfaction of "import" owners eyes bulging out of their heads when it goes "psssh!".
Ben, good to hear from you again, that's great information on importing a Mustang in Australia.
I wonder if I could get one of the Typhoon turbo I6 over here ? Probably not, because they haven't been "federalized" or crash tested.
Dotty for the information on converting money. But I believe the price of cars in Australia includes extra taxes. Maybe Ben can shed some light on that?
The real issue is this, I shouldn't have to import this car privately, Ford should bring it to the US market.
Sorry, I've been busy. Anyway:
The reason the GTO/Monaro is so cheap you you guys is that Holden had to agree to sell them cheap to GM and/or Holden got stiffed because when the agreement was originally reached the US/AU cross rate was much better for Holden.
Our total market here is tiny and we just don't have the economies of scale that you do on "domestics".
We also have import tarrifs on foreign-made cars of about 15%, I think. That and the fact that we're miles from anywhere that makes cars means that new cars are comparitively expensive here. Oh, and we have a 10% GST that is built-in to the retail price (ie, the advertised retail price already includes the GST amount).
On the plus side, older cars are plentify and because we don't have salted roads they tend to last for a lot longer than I see you would expect in the US. My current car is a 94-build and it has no rust anywhere and is rattle free. My previous car was a 1982 Mazda RX-7 which had surface rust in/near the water drain holes. Coastal cars rust more than inland cars but on average cars here are much older than in other Western countries.
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