The return of the Australian motor show is greatly exaggerated

It’s been greater than a decade since Australia last held a world motor show and, with the present state of the market, it’s unlikely we’ll see one again.

Crowds of potential new-car buyers will flock to Melbourne this weekend for what’s being billed as “the most important gathering of automotive manufacturers and aftermarket brands in over 15 years” – but I won’t be one in every of them.

The Melbourne motor show has all of the hallmarks of shows I grew up attending with my dad, but somewhat than a contemporary revival, it’s set to be a display of largely already-seen vehicles, with lower than a handful of proper first-time unveilings.

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In food terms, consider it as vanilla essence, somewhat than the full-strength vanilla extract that was once the Australian International Motor Show.

One could argue the Melbourne motor show is the closest thing we’ll ever get to a correct display of Australia’s new-car market in a single location, however the absence of the nation’s biggest brands and best-selling models means it misses the mark.

Let me be clear, this will not be an attack on the event – it’s great to see quite a lot of brands get together to indicate off their current and future products to the buying public, and hopefully encourage the following generation of fanatics who will in the future take my job.

That features carmakers like MG, which has ambitions – and an upcoming product roadmap – to turn out to be a top-three brand locally, and can unveil some latest models to the world in Melbourne, even when one in every of them is a badge engineering exercise.

However it’s a far cry from 2012, when the last official Australian international motor show brought greater than two dozen brands, with the models on show reportedly accounting for about 95 per cent of the market’s sales.

I used to be there at that final motor show, held at Sydney’s Darling Harbour. It was one in every of a couple of dozen I’d attended, in a the tradition of either heading off from home in Canberra within the morning and returning within the afternoon, or staying at my godfather’s in Wollongong the night before.

I can recall many highlights on the motor show throughout my early years: attending to see the billion-dollar Holden VE Commodore within the metal for the primary time, being near racing god Craig Lowndes when Ford unveiled a limited-run Falcon ute together with his name on it, and sitting in quite a few performance cars I still crave.

It was also on the 2012 edition that I won a racing simulator competition, after which I used to be bought rFactor as a present, well and truly sparking my sim-racing addiction.

My childhood bedroom partitions were held along with nothing aside from posters I’d collected from every year’s motor show, while ornaments from manufacturer stands could later only be described as massive plastic waste.

Sadly, there was to be no 2013 show, canned months before it was as a consequence of go ahead, making it even more strange that the VF Commodore – Holden’s last locally made automotive – never got to be given a correct welcome into the world.

It’s easy to lament the demise of the Australian International Motor Show, but this isn’t a sense exclusive to Aussies.

Up to now handful of years, a few of the world’s most famous motor shows have either turn out to be little greater than a shell of their former selves, or disappeared completely.

Last yr, the Geneva motor show was axed indefinitely, ending its 117-year run, following three straight cancellations in 2020, 2021 and 2022, owing to COVID.

However it wasn’t just COVID responsible for the demise of GIMS, with other shows within the US and Europe also dwindling in size.

The one place where motor shows look like gaining momentum is in Asia, with China particularly being the hotbed for auto exhibitions.

China rotates its premier annual show between Shanghai and Beijing, and each events proceed to grow yearly, according to the nation’s auto industry – which incorporates many state-owned carmakers – becoming a real global powerhouse.

That is reflected within the sheer variety of Chinese brands which can be on display in Melbourne this weekend, well and truly dominating the show floor.

Whether any of them have products that may truly move the needle for Australian driving enthusiasts like myself stays to be seen, nevertheless it does appear we have gotten an increasingly small afterthought because the entourage of recent utes and mid-size SUVs swell.

So while I wish those that run and attend the Melbourne motor show all the very best, I’ll be spending my weekend in Victoria watching GT racing at Phillip Island and looking out at Ford icons in Geelong.

If you should reminisce about Australia’s motor show, tell us what you miss below. You may also view images of motor shows past on the still-active Facebook page.