Toyota first revealed the concept version of the FT86 Coupe at the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show.  Since then there have been a lot of rumors, could this be the takeover of the Celica brand?
As per usual in recession environment, the development of the FT86 is a combined work with Subaru.  The release date is expected in November 2011.  This week the production version of the FT-86 have surfaced on the internet.
You will definitely not find this any day soon in the auctions, you won’t even find it on a new Toyota dealers yard!

Mitsubishi just announced an upgrade for it’s Lancer Evolution X (ten).   Now you can run your family around the rally stages with a maker option rear backing monitor.  Also, as you are coming around a gravel corner at 190kms/hr and you push both the brake and the accelerator at the same time, the brake now will take priority (you may loose a few seconds there getting to the shopping center)!
Now if you are worried about getting to your child’s school in time for that teacher parent interview, Mitsubishi have helped to cushion those corners (140km/hr corners!) by adding a soft pad to the upper part of the interior trim!   Also Mitsubishi have added some soft leather trim to the mid interior (probably to help you not to slip as you leap 3m into the air as you drive over those one lane bridges on the way to golf travelling at 165km/hr).
Now we do have a family Lancer Evolution X

Lancer Evolution X in luxury style

Comfort for the family, and you wont be late for the soccer game!

 Readily available in the Japanese auctions.  An evolution 10 sold in Nagoya last week, grade 4, 2.03 million yen.

We all saw the floods of the tsunami hitting all those cars and trucks.  So where are these vehicles now?  Could it be that they are being sold in the Japanese used car auctions?  Could a vehicle that you buy be one of these?

Basically there are major barriers to companies slipping tsunami history used cars through the Japanese used car auction system.

The first is the inspectors in the auctions themselves.  Basically Provide Cars only buys vehicles from theJapanese used car auctions.  These auctions have a very strict inspectors report.  The inspections are often extremely strict.  I have seen inspectors removing front headlights to find out whether a car has had a crash repair history.  Trying to hide tsunami history vehicles through these auctions without acknowledging it before hand on the auction sheet, would be a hard job.  When the inspector realizes the car he is looking at is a tsunami history car the auction will take up the matter with the selling company.  The selling company is risking their membership and reputation by not telling/acknowledging beforehand to the auction that these vehicles were tsunami history.  The risk to the selling company is too great.

A selling company  therefore has to acknowledge beforehand to the auction that this vehicle is “flood history” or in this case a “tsunami history” used car.  It will then be delegated to the “no claim” area of the auction, if it has documentation to go with the vehicle.   These vehicles sometimes  have a single note “flood history” or something similar written on the auction sheet with no inspectors report to go with it.  They are not being slipped through the auction but set aside to a no-claim part of the auction.
As a buyer you can buy peace.
It would be a totally different story buying from a dealers stock page however!  There is no guarantee where that vehicle has come from.  Now that is high risk!

So where should you as a dealer get your used car stock from?
You need to obtain them from the same source that the large used car exporters obtain them from: the Japanese used car auctions.  You need to buy the best vehicles available in these auctions each day, at the price they are sold for and not at any inflated FOB prices.
The used import car market in New Zealand is perhaps one of the most competitive markets in the world, and to compete in it you need an edge.  That edge is being on the front line of what is available each day at the source of most used cars sold in New Zealand, the Japanese used car auctions.  It requires understanding and a little skill, but if you choose a good exporter to help you through the process you can succeed.  Also, in choosing your used car exporter from Japan, try and choose one that does not have many customers from your country.  Again, if you are trying to buy online from the Japanese used car auctions from a large exporter, the large exporter faces a conflict of interest.  They may have 10 or 20 dealers all wanting to bid on the same vehicle.  They are also wanting to buy for their own stock.  Put yourself in the position of an agent for a large used car exporter in Japan, they have to get there 20 to 30 “good” cars per day for their own stock to sell to New Zealand dealers.  The stock that they do buy must sell for them in New Zealand (or any country they export to).  Where do they get their information about what is a good selling car for New Zealand?  Suddenly they have their dealers all bidding on a yellow Mazda Atenza sport.  Now what is a good car for our large exporters stock?  The car everyone wants to bid on in the auctions that day.  Who wins the competition?  The large exporters stock wins the competition.
So as a used car importer, you need to compete against these large dealers to survive.  You need to own the best available vehicles each day in the auctions.  It is a competitive world and the man with the best stock wins.
I have written this specifically thinking of the New Zealand market, but to an extent it applies to all used Japanese car importing markets that operate in a competitive market.
Get to the front line.  Choose the best stock, survive and succeed.

I once spoke to a used car dealer in New Zealand.  I asked where he was sourcing his stock (used cars) from.  With his fears that I was a salesman trying to change his status quo, he quickly replied that he sourced his cars from one of the very large importers into New Zealand, at their stock yard in Auckland, New Zealand.   And, that he was very happy with the relationship, thank you very much! 
My next question was "How sales were going?"
 His reply was "Sales were terrible."  
Something to do with the weather, or the downturn in New Zealand, or something (the moon perhaps, tides?)..  
He didn’t go the extra bit to connect the two questions together.  Just perhaps he was sourcing his stock (used Japanese cars imported from Japan) from the wrong source.

Without naming companies let’s have a look at the source of this used car dealers stock.  This large export company purchases these vehicles in Japan and then immediately makes them available on their homepage, at whatever price they like.  If this car exporting company thinks their purchase was a bargain then they will sell it at a much larger margin in their own stock than they actually purchased it for. 
They are a large company and they need to do this to survive.  Simple commissions are not enough for them in this down economy and they need to make that plus alpha as much as possible.  Their goal is their profit and not the end users profit (in this case the New Zealand car dealer).
Let’s imagine this exporting company buys 50 cars a day for the New Zealand used car market (or any market).  Of those 50 cars, there may be 10 cars that will sell very quickly, highly suited for the New Zealand market.  Through much research they know their cars.  They are like Google, they have they client orders, they can see and use their clients information and capitalize on it.  They sell these vehicles at higher margins to what they could be bought directly from the auctions, so the profit margin of the New Zealand used car dealer diminishes. 
Now we have 40 cars left.  From these 40 cars, the better of these are bought in Japan by other New Zealand dealers.  What is left for the exporting company’s stock yard in New Zealand?  Boring, standard, plain, common vehicles that could sit in a dealers yard for a month or may be a year!  Well why buy these used cars, they don’t seem to be good stock right?
Good question!  The large car exporting company knows this weak side of their equation, so what do they do?  They need some sort of incentive for their dealer network to buy these stock standard boring cars, that the public basically don’t want to buy.  The incentive is credit. 

Because many dealers have gone belly up in New Zealand (and other markets), the New Zealand banks will not lend to them.  They may have $500,000 worth of stock on their yards, but the New Zealand banks will not lend them a cent.  The large car exporting company capitalizes on this and gives the New Zealand dealer a line of credit on the car they are selling …. can you see where the story goes?   Can you see the stranglehold these large exporters exert on the weakened New Zealand car dealers?  I also know that the large used car exporters from Japan also have their strong links to the New Zealand debt collecting companies.  It is a no-win scenario for the New Zealand car dealers that you definitely don’t want to try to compete in.
So how can you win as a small car dealer in New Zealand or any other country facing a similar situation?  Join us in the next blog for some great ideas.

The Euro-Focus has one, HUMMER has one, Mercedes has one, Porsche has a few of them, Nissan has one, so why shouldn’t Mazda have one too?  Introducing the Mazda Roadster black-tuned edition.  It went on sale in Japan this week.  So why isn’t the car black?  Perhaps it is just the roof that is going to be black?  And it isn’t just any roof, it is a hard top roof, and not only that, it is a retractable hard top roof!  That, according to Mazda, qualifies it for the black-tuned edition.  Not enough you may think?  OK, let’s throw in some black door mirrors, and some black 17inch alloy wheels (actually metallic grey 17inch alloy wheels, but closer to black than red right?).  Not enough black you still think?  OK, let’s go inside.  How about black leather seats and a black leather steering wheel?  No?   Well the final touches by Mazda to make this Roadster RS RHT into the official Mazda Roadster black-tuned edition: give them three possible colors, “spirited green metallic”, “velocity red” and “crystal white pearl”.  (Yes, no black version!  But this is the black version?!).
Buy one new or get one in the auctions soon, again, near new is cheaper than new-new!

GTR skyline, Godzilla or just GTR, Nissan plans to boost the power output of the 2012 model (2011 model release in Japan) to 570 thorough bred horses (horsepower).  In addition to increased boost, revisions to the intake and exhaust have been made.  Suspension and transmission logic has been tweaked.   Underbody airflow has been changed to increase cooling aerodynamics.  Co2 emissions have been reduced.  Again, the premium Black Edition and Egoist will be offered worldwide.  An official Nurburgring racing track, ring time attack will be made in October.  The R35 life cycle will continue for 2 more model years.  (NAGROC blog).


To see how we get the best deals on models like this, check out the live bidding from the Provide Cars car auction team on a Nissan GTR 

A GT-R purchased in the auctions at Provide Cars