Automotive industry in New Zealand

The automotive industry in New Zealand supplies a market which has always had one of the world's highest car ownership ratios. The distributors of new cars are essentially the former owners of the assembly businesses. At the dealership level they have maintained their old retail chains in spite of the establishment of the many new independent businesses built since the 1980s by specialists in used imports from Japan. Toyota entered into direct competition with those used-import businesses refurbishing old Toyotas from Japan and selling them through their own dealers as a special line. The nation's car fleet is accordingly somewhat older than in most developed countries.

New Zealand no longer assembles passenger cars. Assembly plants closed after tariff protection was removed and distributors found it cheaper to import cars fully assembled. Cars had been assembled at a rate nearing 100,000 a year in 1983 but with the country's economic difficulties their numbers dropped sharply. Towards the end of the decade the removal of various restrictions as part of the nation's restructuring of its economy made available low-priced if old used cars from Japan. These used cars met the local need for high ownership levels in a financially straitened world but since that time continue to arrive in such large numbers they substantially increase the average age of the nation's fleet.

Toyota, Ford, and General Motors Holden division still dominate the new car market. The tiny home market—the size of a large city— and distance from potential export customers worked with first-world pay rates against the formation of any significant indigenous manufacturers. Only small boutique kit and replica car firms were able to survive. They produce original kit and replica cars using local-made car bodies and imported componentry for both the local and international markets. Several of these, while small in size, are noted internationally for the quality of their workmanship.

The industry began with the importation in 1898 of two Benz cars from Paris by William McLean. Apart from a few attempts to create locally made cars in the 1900s (decade) most were imported and a local assembly industry got under way in the 1920s.

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