In the June 2006 edition of Modern Motor, (’Singing from the Same Song Book’ by Bill Tuckey) they reckon that the Australian Design Rules (ADRs) that govern everything from seat belt and head light intensity to width of number plate recesses are being abolished. And fair enough too. As they point out, they cost Aussie consumers a lot in mark ups when bringing cars to market.

John Conomos the former head of Toyota Australia reckons that the SC400 Lexus coupe and the Toyota Echo would’ve come out a lot differently if not for the ADRs. Let’s not forget that in the early 90s, the SC400 would’ve been worth the best part of $100K AUD. Apparently it never ended up here because its Japanese number plate recess in the front bumper wasn’t wide enough to accomodate an Aussie number plate. Oh dear. Too expensive the bean counters said and they gave up. While the Echo ended up going on sale, the ADRs were apparently the bane of its existence. While these are two isolated examples, it shows how burocracy got in the way of getting cars to market that were of Luftwaffe like quality.

The irony of course is now the Lexus SC400 is all over the streets because so many grey importers registered for SEVS (Special Enthusiast Vehicle System) rights to import them in small but noticable quantities. Now that $100K car can be bought 15 years old for $10K.

This brings me to my point. If they bugger off the ADRs, and gel with the EU and Japanese design rules, what about all the SEVS liscenced importers? Can we still get grey imports? All these importers who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in SEVS compliance fees, was all their money in vein now the ADRs the SEVS scheme was designed to enforce don’t exist? Will the price of the $140K 2005 Mustang drop to something more reasonable? A big chunk of that has to be SEVS compliance costs. Who knows.

All I know is, I hope it doesn’t mean that they let crap in the ADRs stopped. For example the Proton Iswara was going to be a run about that made a Kia Rio look exorbitant selling for under $10K brand spankers.  Based on 1983 Mitsubishi Colt architecture, there was probably nothing left of it after the mandatory frontal collision test as part of ADR compliance. And that was the last we heard of that.

I hope we get the best of 3 worlds out of this change:
- We get cheaper and better grey imports now they don’t have to be made to comply with ADRs
- We get cheaper cars sold domestically in Australia
- We don’t get sub standard cars that somehow slip through the cracks, eg the Proton Iswara.

According to the National Transport Commission Web site, reviewing of the ADRs was announced 18/11/2004 with no ETA. All my favourite grey import sites and the DOTARS web site have nothing to say. No one has anything to say on this hot potato! This could be the biggest thing in 50 years in the Aussie motor industry. Wierd. More to come soon chaps.