THE TRUTH ABOUT GTO'S AND PARTS IN AUSTRALIA
In this article we take a look at the Holden Monaro or Pontiac GTO as you know it as and the parts situation here in Australia.
Background to this article
Here at SGM RACING we often receive messages like:
"Hey can you source me this" or "Hi, I'm looking for this can you help"
With the expectation that parts are everywhere and cheap, I mean.... Holden is Australian, we're located in Australia how hard can it be? Well lets take a real honest in depth look at Australia, and the Monaro (GTO) and discuss the honest truth and why Americans have been mislead by the internet on occasion
The Monaro or GTO
Put simply, there's not many of these around, in the grand scheme of things they didn't make many, and they didn't sell many. The 2000 era Monaro was never meant to exist, it was secretly designed behind Holden's back by engineers and car designers (Which is a story for another day)
When Holden took a look at it, they loved it and set about making happen as a bit of a tip of the hat to the older versions of Monaro that were so successful both on and off the racetrack.
The whole idea behind the car was never for mass sales, but to make a car in low-ish production volume to grab the market of the older generation whom had money and wanted to add a piece of Holden's history to their garage or collection. These cars were NEVER aimed and young people from the word go
In fact in Australia, many states legal minimum age to drive a car solo is 18, and with that comes a very strict set of rules which vary from state to state. In the years between 2000 up until this very point in time driving a V8 is and was pretty much illegal bar some loopholes to get around it, So Holden had zero motivation to sell to youths looking for a hot car to blast around in. Even now, you wont find many 18-22 year old's driving a V8 of any sort, its simply illegal and heavily enforced
When the Monaro was released here in Australia in 2001. The entry price to ownership wasn't cheap. Again these cars were targeted for people with car collections or had retirement money burning a hole in their pocket. This means, most Monaro's here in Australia are hardly driven, modified and crashed, seeing Monaro's driven on the road while not exactly rare, certainly isn't common either, especially as time goes on and people look at the cars as pure investments rather than a form of transport or weekend toy. You'd be lucky to find a modified version on the streets that has more than a set of wheels and an aftermarket exhaust. It simply just isn't the case here. This is where Instagram and you-tube and FB have mislead a lot of people with posts of cars all hotted up roaming the streets. They are rare examples and don't truly represent the car scene across the nation
So whats the situation with parts then?
Well if the average Monaro owner can be looked at in a similar way as the average C5 corvette owner, many are older gentleman whom enjoy the cars but hardly require parts for them. In the Monaro's case, this means cars don't get crashed often so panel shops don't require parts. There's no real demand for after market parts as the owners aren't the type to hot-rod the cars so the aftermarket is minimal. Finally, Holden themselves just didn't make much money off parts so they didn't make many spares as the demand simply isn't there.
The reality is, in the USA you probably have more parts stateside and definitely have more cars being wrecked for parts than we have here or ever will ever have here. Maybe someday we'll be buying parts back to keep our cars on the road.
So when it comes to Monaro's and GTO's, parts are a premium. Combine that with "Holden tax" "Covid tax" high cost of living here in Australia along with where Australia is located geographically and the cost of shipping, the cost of parts is inflated and doesn't show signs of getting any cheaper any time soon.
Background to this article
Here at SGM RACING we often receive messages like:
"Hey can you source me this" or "Hi, I'm looking for this can you help"
With the expectation that parts are everywhere and cheap, I mean.... Holden is Australian, we're located in Australia how hard can it be? Well lets take a real honest in depth look at Australia, and the Monaro (GTO) and discuss the honest truth and why Americans have been mislead by the internet on occasion
The Monaro or GTO
Put simply, there's not many of these around, in the grand scheme of things they didn't make many, and they didn't sell many. The 2000 era Monaro was never meant to exist, it was secretly designed behind Holden's back by engineers and car designers (Which is a story for another day)
When Holden took a look at it, they loved it and set about making happen as a bit of a tip of the hat to the older versions of Monaro that were so successful both on and off the racetrack.
The whole idea behind the car was never for mass sales, but to make a car in low-ish production volume to grab the market of the older generation whom had money and wanted to add a piece of Holden's history to their garage or collection. These cars were NEVER aimed and young people from the word go
In fact in Australia, many states legal minimum age to drive a car solo is 18, and with that comes a very strict set of rules which vary from state to state. In the years between 2000 up until this very point in time driving a V8 is and was pretty much illegal bar some loopholes to get around it, So Holden had zero motivation to sell to youths looking for a hot car to blast around in. Even now, you wont find many 18-22 year old's driving a V8 of any sort, its simply illegal and heavily enforced
When the Monaro was released here in Australia in 2001. The entry price to ownership wasn't cheap. Again these cars were targeted for people with car collections or had retirement money burning a hole in their pocket. This means, most Monaro's here in Australia are hardly driven, modified and crashed, seeing Monaro's driven on the road while not exactly rare, certainly isn't common either, especially as time goes on and people look at the cars as pure investments rather than a form of transport or weekend toy. You'd be lucky to find a modified version on the streets that has more than a set of wheels and an aftermarket exhaust. It simply just isn't the case here. This is where Instagram and you-tube and FB have mislead a lot of people with posts of cars all hotted up roaming the streets. They are rare examples and don't truly represent the car scene across the nation
So whats the situation with parts then?
Well if the average Monaro owner can be looked at in a similar way as the average C5 corvette owner, many are older gentleman whom enjoy the cars but hardly require parts for them. In the Monaro's case, this means cars don't get crashed often so panel shops don't require parts. There's no real demand for after market parts as the owners aren't the type to hot-rod the cars so the aftermarket is minimal. Finally, Holden themselves just didn't make much money off parts so they didn't make many spares as the demand simply isn't there.
The reality is, in the USA you probably have more parts stateside and definitely have more cars being wrecked for parts than we have here or ever will ever have here. Maybe someday we'll be buying parts back to keep our cars on the road.
So when it comes to Monaro's and GTO's, parts are a premium. Combine that with "Holden tax" "Covid tax" high cost of living here in Australia along with where Australia is located geographically and the cost of shipping, the cost of parts is inflated and doesn't show signs of getting any cheaper any time soon.