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How do Australian Classic Cars compare to Overseas examples ?

December 6, 2016
How do Australian Classic Cars compare to Overseas examples ?

What are the differences between Australian and Overseas Specification Classic and Modern Classic Cars

Since all European Classic Cars were all built in the same factories in Europe, we thought that it might be interesting to see how the Australian specification cars line up with their European specification counterparts. Although all the cars came from exactly the same production line, the engines had different compression ratio's and valve timing for different markets.

     Vehicle                      Australian Power Output             Overseas Power Output        

1985 Porsche 911SC                        204 hp                                    230 hp (Europe)   

1984 Porsche 930 Turbo                296 hp                                    330 hp (Europe)

1985 Porsche 928                             272 hp                                    306 hp (Europe)

Toyota Supra                                     276 hp                                    320 hp (U.K)

Mitsubishi 3000 GTO                      280 hp                                     320 hp (Japan)

Mitsubishi Evolution                      290-300 hp                    300,330,360,400 or 440 hp (U.K)               

The relative values of Australian Delivered cars are often discussed by many in the Classic Car world, and so we thought that we would look at the situation objectively, and see how one car chosen at random would stack up in relation to a car from the rest of the world (Europe). We parked two cars side by side, and this is what we found :

1985 Porsche 928                                                                          Australian spec       European spec

Cruise Control                                                                                              No                       Yes
Climate control                                                                                            No                       Yes 
Rear speakers                                                                                               No                       Yes
Full leather interior                                                                                    No                       Yes
306 BHP                                                                                                 No (276hp)                Yes
Larger Front Brake Rotors                                                                       No                       Yes
Rear Hazard Fog Lamps                                                                           No                       Yes
Side door Intrusion Bars                                                                          Yes                       No

Interestingly,  all the service schedule books for both cars have service increments in miles, and not kilometres.        
   

Our conclusion from viewing these two Porsche 928's side by side, is that many of the options that appeared on European cars were simply not supplied on Australian cars. Much of this lack of parity was due to the exact source of the vehicles, because not all Porsche models that were ordered in Australia by Dealer's were purchased directly from the factory. In many cases, Australian Dealer Networks did the same as the Ferrari Importers did, and puchased cars from a United Kingdon Dealer (which was Maranello Concessionaires in the case of Ferrari).

Some Porsche Dealer's purchased their cars from AFN Porsche in Chiswick, London, and so were able to order a less expensive (lower specification) car, which is how these Australian Delivered cars happened to come into the country wih less features. As mentioned earlier, one way to identify these lower specification Australian Delivered models is to carefully view the Service Schedule books, as they will be intervalled in miles and not kms.

Many are under the illusion that all new Australian Porsche 911's and 928's were supplied directly from the factory, although as can now be seen, this is not always the case. The Service Schedule books often exposes the fact that these cars were actually bought from the United Kingdom, and not Germany. We have many of these cars, and they still have Australian Compliance Plates !.

With regard to the actual engine specification for Australian Delivered cars, the cars brought in by Dealer's were the lowest performance available, which  was due to the low grade fuel available in Australia during the years that these cars entered the country. This was done to protect Porsche's great reliability record, and prevented the melting of pistons or valves.

We will go on to review many more cars, although the early indications are that European cars, as well as cars sold new in the United Kingdom, had greater performance as well as improved features. When one stops to consider that during the late 1980's and early 1990's, most Australian Toyota's and Honda's had wind-up windows, no air conditioning, no sunroof's and no power steering, these findings were not at all unfamiliar. The equivalent Japanese Imported cars brought in at that time had all of those features, and in many cases many more.




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