page_title: Automotive industry in New Zealand
section_title: America's domination
hierarchical_section_title: Automotive industry in New Zealand / Impact of legislation / America's domination
caption_attribution_description: 1926 Rugby
context_page_description: 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 old used cars from Japan.
context_section_description: Higher duties were imposed on imports from countries outside the British Empire. Nevertheless new cars registered during 1917 show rather more than 90 per cent of New Zealand's cars originated in North America During the First World War the tariff on car bodies was reduced to 10% but the same rate was also imposed on the previously free chassis. Import statistics of the time provide different quantities for bodies and more numerous chassis no mention of complete cars. Unlike in Australia local coachbuilders lost business in the early 1920s. Some of the bigger firms ended up producing only commercial vehicles, truck cabs, trailers but mainly bus bodies, for example New Zealand Standard Motor Bodies (Munt Cottrell) in Petone, Steel Bros in Christchurch. Some simply became motor retailers themselves like Auckland's Schofields in Newmarket.
  Before the First World War motoring was reserved for the prosperous. Roads in cities and towns may have been very dusty but were smooth and well-formed. Townsfolk were on the whole satisfied with their English cars designed for the same conditions, built with care to high engineering standards but with only lip-service to interchangeability of parts. They required regular expensive maintenance at short intervals. American cars were built in large quantities and thus cheaper, designed by much better engineers and built for bad surfaces and to cope with irregular maintenance which might be hard to find even in their homeland.
  During the 1920s the most common vehicles were U.S. brands made in Canada (to attract reduced Imperial Preference duties) or USA. For example, in the first nine months of 1927, out of 8,888 cars sold the five top-selling brands, 4612 cars, were all North American. The top three were Ford in first place with 1651 vehicles sold, Chevrolet in second place with 1,100 vehicles sold, and Essex (by Hudson) in third place with 898 vehicles sold.
  At the onset of the great depression car imports fell away.
caption: 1926 Rugby from Toronto
  started well but did not catch-on
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