Motor-vehicle’s future assured

Press, 11 October 1979, Page 10

Motor-vehicle’s future assured

PA Nelson The future of the motorvehicle in New Zealand is assured, representatives of the retail motor trade have been told in Nelson. Addressing the combined conference of the Motor Trade. Association and the Motor-Vehicle Dealers’ Institute, the managing director of the Ford Motor Company of New Zealand (Mr J. G. Auton) said the economics of the world, including New Zealand, would adjust to sustain the demand for cars. Governments had an interest in automobile production . that was easy to understand, he said. “The economic difference that automobile manufacturing can make in stimulating employment.

exports, and technological advancement has become the understandable reason why motor-vehicle companies are so aggressively solicited by almost every country in the world,” he said. Other factors in his outlook were that New Zealand was sitting on vast energy resources, and that cars of the future would be lighter and more fuel efficient. In spite of the turn to small cars, large cars would continue to hold their present 10 per cent of the total market in New Zealand, he said. “There is unlikely to be much further reduction as there will always be some who really need this size of car for the continuation of their business or their life-style.”