Same Show - Different Motors

The ticket arrived a few weeks ago and I have to admit, I was excited. And so was my son. He’d bought them in advance and the timing for the event, being the weekend of my birthday, was spot-on perfect.

Of course, tickets aren’t really tickets anymore, at least not in the physical sense. Like everything else, the paper version is now replaced by a cleverly crafted set of electrons and lines of code, stored very conveniently on my iThing. In a roundabout way, it serves as a metaphor for how much things have changed since I last attended the event itself.

But no matter; the message attached to the email said it all - “We’re going!”. I’ve been looking forward to it ever since.

We were off to the Melbourne Motor Show.

This semi-annual event has been around in one form or another for decades and in the years of my youth - that most glorious decade of them all, the ‘80s - my father and I would go practically every year. Dad loved cars - well, he loved pretty much anything that could be driven around - and like all boys my age, I was into them too. Things were far more tribal back then. You could be in the Holden tribe or the Ford tribe, but never both. Such thoughts were too sacrilegious to even contemplate.

But in that era, Australia actually manufactured things. Home-grown vehicle manufacturing was still in full swing, and the yearly capital city motor shows were the places where all the big companies showcased their latest models to an eager, and largely parochial, market. In my experience, it was the halls of Melbourne’s Exhibition Buildings which were filled with home-grown models from Ford, Holden (GM, if you’re playing from elsewhere), Toyota, Nissan and Mitsubishi.

Practically every model on the floor had rolled off production lines in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney and Brisbane, and no matter which brand you might’ve been loyal to, models such as “Kingswood” and “Commodore” and “Falcon” and “Skyline” and “Sigma” could not readily be found anywhere else on the planet. The industry was huge and gave us a real sense of national identity. Something to be proud of.

In the Australia of 2026 however, every single one of those factories is long gone.

But like it or not, change is inevitable. How we deal with it is a choice. And it doesn’t have to be a binary one. Better? Worse? Or just different.

Those memories will stay with my generation forever, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still be interested in - even excited by - what today’s manufacturers are coming up with. Better still, the tradition of a father and son sharing a love of all things automotive, in a setting like this, remains constant.

The most immediate difference is that the show is now held at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre - better known to most Melburnians simply as “Jeff’s Shed”. Striding through the doors, we’re quickly into the cavernous hall, surrounded by hundreds of new cars, along with a great selection of heritage displays. You know… all those brand names I mentioned earlier.

Two factors from here are conspicuous, and while perhaps one would be expected, the other was surprising. First, it is clear that Chinese vehicle manufacturing is rapidly becoming dominant. And much as it may be a peeve to traditionalists (myself, for example), it is a reality that cannot be avoided. Further, the technology in these vehicles is often astonishing. Almost all are EVs - another sign of the times - and the spread of brands is very large, and increasing. There are many on display that I had never heard of.

The counter to this is what I regard as equally conspicuous. There’s a near complete absence of the traditional brands. No Ford, no GM (of any flavour), no Nissan, no Toyota, no Mitsubishi, no Mercedes-Benz or BMW. I had at least expected some of these brands to be here spruiking their hybrids and EVs, but if they did have a presence, they must have been extraordinarily well hidden.

Recent US policy changes in regard to electric vehicles have allowed some of the traditional brands to step away from the technology, and perhaps this was reflected by their absence. On the other side of the equation, recent spikes in oil prices have prompted a big uptick in demand for EVs in countries like Australia, providing opportunities for other companies - almost all of them Chinese-based - to fill that gap. What we saw at this year’s show again reflects this reality.

Some of the marketing minds in these newer companies may want to give some thought to branding. I think of a company like Great Wall, now “GWM”, or Build Your Dreams, more readily accepted as “BYD”. Seriously… “GAC”, “JAC” and “Zeekr”, to name but a few, just sound a bit odd, at least to me.

With that said, there was plenty of interesting technology to look at, and my son put the trade show aspect to good use, finding products and making contacts for his business.

But for all the high-tech new vehicles I saw that day - all the EVs and hybrids and so on - it was the sight of this beautifully restored Mazda Capella RX2 that caught my eye. My first car was a Capella - a ’78 model, brown in colour. While its 1.6 litre piston engine wasn’t quite as fancy as this ’75 version’s immaculate, worked 12A rotary, just seeing it there took me back to that time.

And it made me smile.

A great day out, sharing it with family and indulging a passion.

My son has a son of his own now, and a great little side hustle in the form of a car detailing business. I’m sure that passion is something he’ll pass along to the next generation and in time, they’ll continue this annual pilgrimage as well.

The memories of the cars of his youth will be held with the same reverence that I hold mine, I am sure.

Change is inevitable.

Even traditions evolve.