Supercar-shaped Corvette headed to Shitsville in 2020. Yesssssss! It'll cost about $170,000. 

Jesus. 

Same car in Retardistan: $60 grand US (which is about $90k ‘Strayan). 

So: Who’s gouging who?

Save thousands on any new car (Australia-only): https://autoexpert.com.au/contact

Did you like this report? You can help support the channel, securely via PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=DSL9A3MWEMNBW&source=url

This report is inspired by a dude named Chris Papa, by e-mail.

"Could you detail Luxury Car Tax and other hidden fees? The 2020 Chevrolet Corvette is set to arrive in Australia in RHD. Its estimated retail price here will be about $170,000. This is preposterous considering that in the US the 2020 Corvettes will retail for around USD $60,000 and converted to AUD that equates to approximately $87,000. 

"Why is there such an outrageous markup (of about 100 per cent)? How much of that is LCT? What would the rest of the cost be made up of? Why are carmakers (desperate to make more sales and some with very deep pockets) not lobbying the Australian Federal Government to abolish LCT?" - Chris Papa

Just to get the finances out of the way here: Australia has a free-trade agreement with Retardistan. That’s been in place for nearly 15 years, so to the best of my knowledge there’s no protective import duty on US cars. Nor is there import duty on cars from Japan, Thailand or South Korea - for the same reason. 

So the vast majority of cars on sale in Australia currently are import duty-free. 

Luxury car tax is indexed so the threshhold increases every year with the CPI. It’s currently imposed on conventional cars over $67,525, or allegedly green cars over $75,526. In both cases it’s an additional 33 per cent on the amount of that car’s value over the threshhold.

So if you run the numbers on that, ballpark, if the 2020 Shitsville Corvette is $170,000 - that equates to about $25,000 in luxury car tax. Meaning the cost of the Corvette minus LCT is about $145,000.

So, ballpark again: if the same car in Retardistan is $90k, there’s a $55k disparity between the Retardistan Corvette and ours. Part of that is going to be amortising the cost of gearing up for right-hand drive production over the number of right-drive units they think they’ll produce.

There’s not too many right-drive markets - there’s us, Japan, the UK, Macau. But essentially the bulk of Corvettes are going to be left-hookers. So that’s part of it. The rest is just GM’s internal pricing structure and what they think they can get away with here.

You can look at it like a gouge if you want, but the Corvette is going to be faster - a lot faster, at least in a straight line - than a car like a BMW M4, which is about the same price. And it’s a lot cheaper than a proper mid-engined supercar.

Still got that legendary GM build quality, however. Which could be entertaining.

Just for perspective, the ‘poverty’ 911 Porsche (not strictly speaking mid-engined) is about $230k here in Shitsville. Exactly the same car with the wheel on the same side, in Brexitpotamia is $155k (including 20 per cent VAT). The povvo 911 is $60k more than the Corvette, as well as being more than a second slower to 100. So there’s that.

If you want that level of performance, it’s cheap at $170,000.