This week my wife and I continued our search for a new vehicle. We were taken down to the largest auction house in Sapporo, to cruise the enormous car lots in search of the specific vehicle that we were after. And would you believe it, they had one, two if you count the one that's 'colour wasn't right'. So we're thinking, sweet! Our guy had told us that we could get the exact car we were after for about 1,200,000 yen, later that day however, the story started to change, and the average sale price of the vehicle at auction climbed up to 1,600,000 - 1,800,000 yen (between AUD$18,500 and AUD$21,200), and this was not including the on road costs, registration, road tax, and sales tax (5%). This car was starting to look not so cheap and more, especially since when we get the vehicle back to Australia we're gonna have to pay at least 20% more on taxes, then pay for inspections and minor car adjustments to bring it up to Aussie standard.
The real problem was that the cars we were looking at just didn't have the kms on them that is needed to make them unattractive to a Japanese buyer. The cars available that day only had 25000kms on their clocks, quite within levels of acceptance. The cheaper vehicles that we'd been looking at in Tokyo had about 55000kms on them, which in three years is a fair amount of driving in a relatively small country like this.
So, to cut to the chase, we're either gonna have to, 1. wait, 2. go for the non GT version of the latest model which comes in cheaper, but sells in Aus cheaper too, 3. adjust our tastes to go for the previous model (pictured above) which consistently comes with cars with the level of kms to make them unattractive to Japanese buyers (80000kms+, which is nothing really), or 4. go to Tokyo. Sadly, number 4 is sounding good at the moment, but that is probably just cos I'm bored of work at the moment, and any excuse to get on a plane sounds great.
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