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NEW CAR NEWS

Chris Nixon unveils the latest models and makes to hit Australian shores.

LOW-PRICE LEVY FOR LATEST CHEVY The Australian enthusiast’s beloved HSV high-performance Commodore sedan is long gone, along with the parent brand, but some V8-spiritual relief has landed in the form of the first Chevrolet Corvette to be officially sold here with factory right-hand drive.

That’s big news for fans of America’s-own sports car, who since its introduction in 1953 have had to privately (and expensively) convert imports from left-hand steering in order to drive here.

The C8 (eighth generation) Corvette Stingray is now available from a limited number of dealers representing General Motors Specialty Vehicles, a shrunken Holden successor established to distribute this car and the big Chevy Silverado pick-up.

Pitched as a Porsche 911 rival, the Corvette has an impressive story.

Now with a mid-mounted V8 providing 369 kiloWatts of power, it can hit 310 kmh. Two trim levels plus a standalone special edition called Carbon are available from $144,990. A convertible version adds $15,000.

Less than $150,000 for a 300 kmh sports car appears to be unbeatable value and the limited Corvette allocation for Australia is likely to be sold out very soon.

ASTON’S FABULOUS VALHALLA The numbers are staggering for Aston Martin’s latest hyper-sports car, the Valhalla. And ironic.

Now owner of a Formula 1 team, Aston Martin used the recent Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne to unveil the fabulous Valhalla.

It bills the car as not only showcasing its involvement in the über-tech world of F1, but also as a first step in transitioning its road cars from petrol power, to hybrid and ultimately, full electric.

The Valhalla is the first Aston Martin to locate its engine behind the occupants, rather than in front.

At last, it falls into line with the layout long used by Ferrari, Lamborghini, Lotus, Porsche, McLaren and other supercar makes.

And it has not one motor, but three – a petrol, twin-turbo V8 plus electric motors front and rear.

Total power when called up by the driver, 700 kiloWatts (950 horsepower). Torque, 1000 Newtonmetres.

Performance is in the F1 realm, with acceleration from rest to 100 kmh taking just 2.5 seconds and a top speed of 350 kmh.

And there’s the irony: isn’t electric power supposed to be saving the world from the motor car?

Here’s an example of a road car with performance that’s impossible to experience except on a race track and that will be limited to just 999 people able to afford the equivalent of an $A1.8 million price tag.

TAKE A BOW, HYUNDAI Proving you don't have to spend a fortune to buy a great car, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 has won the 2022 World Car of the Year award.

The fully-electric, SUV-like hatchback also won the Best Design and Best Electric awards, presented at the New York motor show.

It beat its twin-under-the-skin Kia EV6 and the Ford Mustang Mach-E in an all-EV final.

The award was determined by 102 judges from 33 countries and reviewers around the world have given the Hyundai rave reviews.

It’s available in Australia as a full EV from $71,900 with a battery driving range of up to 450 kms.

GOLD COAST GROWTH

Two years that reshaped the property market.

IN THE SPACE of two short years, the pandemic has reshaped the Australian property market in unexpected ways.

Perhaps the most significant is a tightening of price differentials between regional and metropolitan markets.

Anyone with an interest in property would have seen house prices in some of their favourite regional markets reach heady heights in the past two years.

A recent analysis by CoreLogic shows that house prices in regional areas grew 70 per cent faster than the combined growth of our larger cities since 2020.

Specifically, the exodus from capital cities led to a 36.5 per cent increase in the home value index in regional markets compared with just a 21.4 per cent lift in the combined capitals.

This goes a long way to explaining the extent of the narrowing price gap between the capitals and regions.

Even before the pandemic, premium regional locations, such as the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, were leading the way with strong growth, but now they are cracking records that put the market in line with some of the most expensive real estate in the country.

A penthouse in Noosa, for example, sold last year for the equivalent of $54,000 a square metre.

While this compares with $108,000 per square metre paid for a Double Bay penthouse in Sydney this year, it reflects the willingness of high-networth individuals to pay a premium for prime regional properties.

It also points to the trend of property wealth spreading beyond the dominant markets of Sydney and Melbourne.

The median house price on the Gold Coast edged close to $1 million at the end of 2021.

Prior to the pandemic, this would have been considered the sole prevail of the country’s most expensive market, Sydney.

The Regional Movers Index, compiled by the Regional Australia Institute to gauge domestic migration from the big cities, underscored the price momentum for the Gold Coast which took the lion’s share of sea-changers in 2021 by absorbing 11 per cent of the combined capital city exodus.

It was followed by the Sunshine Coast at 5 per cent – which is a comparatively equivalent growth rate based on the Sunshine Coast having half of the Gold Coast’s population.

The gains in the Australian market in 2021 have seen the combined value of the residential sector edge close to $10 trillion, which is $2 trillion more than this time last year as the regions made a healthy contribution to this total.

While the market consensus is for an easing of property price pressures this year, the Knight Frank Wealth Report for 2022 is forecasting another big year for the top end of the market.

The report reveals that changes in spending patterns by the ultra-wealthy have been driving growth in prime regional areas, but it also sees the trend now swinging back in favour of the big cities.

“There’s been much attention on the idea that COVID-19 triggered an ongoing trend of Australians leaving urban centres for regional areas,” says Knight Frank’s head of residential research Michelle Ciesielski.

“In fact, what we are now seeing is that ultra-wealthy Australians are transferring their wealth back to the cities whilst also investing in second homes.

“The use of second homes for longer periods was supercharged in 2021 as flexible working grew and homeowners looked to decamp for periods of time.”

The Knight Frank Wealth Report’s Prime International Residential Index (PIRI) tracks the movement of luxury residential prices across the world’s top 100 residential markets.

Included in this list are five Australian cities – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Gold Coast.

Looking over the past year, the PIRI reveals that the Australian luxury property market performed better than the global average for a second successive year in 2021.

The combined growth of the five Australian cities was 12.3 per cent which compares with the global average of 8.4 per cent.

The Gold Coast was the best performing among all the Australian cities, ranked as the 12th fastest-growing market globally at 17.1 per cent.

It was followed by Sydney at number 17 (16.2 per cent), Brisbane at 29 (11.2 per cent), Perth at 31 (10.5 per cent) and Melbourne at 39 (9.4 per cent).

The clear message is that luxury properties are in demand by high-net-worth individuals.

Even though the regions remain strong, the Wealth Report is predicting a strong comeback this year for Sydney’s luxury market with forecast growth of 9 per cent.

Notably, this will be at a much slower pace than 2021.