It’s fair to say nobody was entirely happy with the Road Vehicle Standards Act in its intended form and numerous automotive business were preparing for the worst, that was until the federal government pushed pause.
Few have stared potential ruin in the face, and subsequently fought like hell to survive the red tape strangulation, quite like managing director of Morgan Cars and Caterham Cars Australia, Chris van Wyk.
His business, which is owned and operated out of the Zagame Autosports’ building in Cremorne, in Melbourne, is one of very few caught in the middle between being a franchised dealer and an importer.
Selling barely a handful of these stunning cars every year, Morgan and Caterham are such low-volume brands they’re built in batches of less than a thousand per year and each unit is essentially only built with an order in place.
They’re essentially moderate to high-performance drivetrains, clothed in the eloquence of styling cues and design language not seen in mass production for half a century.
People buy an Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce or McLaren to own something rare, special and thrilling to thread through traffic or squirt down a desolate, snaking back road. And then there’s a Morgan Aero 8.
Track nuts turn up to Winton in their tweaked this-or-that, while others roll a low-slung, carbon-braked, straight-piped supercar out of a truck.
Then there’s a Caterham 485.
Van Wyk has just three Caterhams allocated for 2018.And for the past 18 months/two years, he’s attended several meetings and consultations with the federal government’s infrastructure department, debating tooth-and-nail to get the bureaucrats to see sense.
And in May, news came through his Victorian customers would pay even more as a result of treasurer Tim Pallas’ decision to slug even more tax on a vehicle retailing at over $100,000.
It’s never the way one likes to open a conversation with such a welcoming chap, who can rustle up a bloody good cup of coffee.
“It’s stealing; totally unjustified stealing, and not just on cars – I don’t want to tell you what we pay in tax for this building,” he says.
“The government has done absolutely nothing in order for me to get a car on the road – nothing.
“Yet they take more profit on such a vehicle than the dealer who’s paid for delivery, paid the import duty, paid luxury car tax, extortionate registration fees, paid exorbitant rent, pays GST, employs staff, and supports an entire economy of parts and servicing, of retail and vocational training – but the government does nothing and makes more than the business trying to break even,” van Wyk explains.
He says politicians are killing more than just dealerships, and attributes the on-going survival of the business to the entrusted partnership with the Zagame family business.
“Take a look around the streets of Richmond, Fitzroy Street, Bridge Road, Chapel Street; why do they think Myer and David Jones are struggling?” he asks.
“People are selling shirts and socks and shoes, the rent’s sky-high and they wonder why businesses are dying in the digital revolution – the Labor mentality is tax, tax, tax – then they blow the money,” he answers.
It’s a valid point.The Swan Street section of the Zagame Automotive business may be hard to miss with purple Lamborghinis, orange McLarens, gorgeous Astons and glistening rosso Ferraris on one side with signage, but take a good look around and the reality is, a large portion of shopfronts are stripped of decoration and sit there as drab, graffiti-ridden real estate waiting for another unlikely hopeful.
What keeps the Zagame business as a whole beating and Chris’s Caterham/Morgan passion project alive, he says, is the service they offer, and the respectful understanding of their customers.
“Every pillar of profit potential a dealership has is quickly becoming a loss maker,” he says pessimistically but realistically.
“The consumer is buying based on a price now, not for the value in the product; they don’t see the staff, the taxes, the liabilities, the investments, the expenses that business has to endure,” he explains.
Fortunately, those certain few Caterham and Morgan customers have an old-school mindset and place a more traditional value on buying a product.
“Customers in this end of the market tend to be self-made people, they typically understand how hard it is just to keep their business staying alive and eventually turn a profit – there’s a mutual respect for the value of the dollar,” van Wyk reveals.
It’s easy to think of the wealthier consumer as someone carefree about cash and far less vigilant than the mass-market car buyer, but Chris says to the contrary.
“Customers tend to be their own bosses and haven’t had to rely on others, so they’re not typically on a salary which depends on someone above,” he concedes.
“So, when it comes to buying a car, they see the value on not just what they’re buying, but the service, the experience and the satisfaction that purchase offers,” he continues.
“We would be selling in a shed if it weren’t for our service and the customer who appreciates not only our cars which are a ‘want’ purchase, not a ‘need’; but they understand the importance of their obligations, their role in paying for something,” van Wyk says.
In order for van Wyk to bring the beautifully analogue Morgan 3-Wheeler into Australia to sell, he personally had to be familiar with every line of ADR compliance, not only for a passenger car, but for motorcycles as well.
He’s so proficient with the Road Vehicle Standards Act, the Specialist Enthusiast Vehicle Scheme and associated regulations, van Wyk was the chosen one for helping the Zagame business homologate the Pagani hypercar brand’s astonishingly beautiful – and blindingly fast – cars into Australia.
The Morgan 3-Wheeler, he recalls vividly, had to be dropped at a height on to its nose to pass the engineering criteria stipulated by the department.
But that wasn’t the end of it.
“The front end is classified as a passenger car, according to the government, but when I had it in for inspection, the dual rear tail-lights on a single-wheel rear end was considered non-compliant because the back half is classed as a motorcycle, so the light had to be singular,” he explains with blank expression.
Emissions have also been the bane of his existence in the recent past, as WLTP standards in Europe were eventually adopted for Australia, but in the delay, rendered an incoming allocation of Caterham’s non-compliant – despite only being a few cars on order.
Only last week were those engines – based on tuned versions of Ford’s four-cylinder Focus engine – approved under a special exception clause and allowed to enter.
But because of the year-in-advance production ordering the Caterham factory in England works on, Chris hasn’t been able to take any orders since 2017.
Happily, van Wyk says the business is looking at a much more promising short-term outlook where he can bring in up to 25 Morgan cars, 100 three-wheelers, and somewhere around 1000 Caterhams, but he still has to present each individual car to VicRoads.
“This has been a labour of love, selling these cars,” he says.
“And it’s not an economically viable business, it survives because of passion for the cars, the respect of our customers and the generosity of the Zagame family who believe in what we do here,” he smiles.
“I am also pleased the federal government has delayed the Road Vehicle Standards Bill, it’ll give them a chance to get it right,” he concludes.
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