The price creep

By ALASTAIR SLOANE

The S55 AMG Mercedes-Benz has more fruit than Kerikeri. It is a highly sophisticated limousine from the German carmaker's specialised tuning house. It costs $279,000, or $281,000 if you want the more luxurious front seats.

It is at its best on the high-speed roads of Europe, slipping through two countries for lunch, perhaps.

It is not bad on the Auckland-Wellington run, either.

The Toyota Land Cruiser VX also has lots of goodies, including an option the S55 does not have: a fridge.

The VX comes from Toyota's factory in Japan and costs $90,500, or $95,950 if you want the executive package.

It is at its best in the back of beyond, tackling tough terrain. It could handle a lunch-run across a couple of borders in Europe, and it makes easy work of the Auckland-Wellington journey - but it doesn't come within a bull's roar of the S55 AMG for comfort and handling, let alone prestige.

On September 1 the S55 AMG will still cost $279,000 or $281,000. But the Land Cruiser will have jumped $2000 to $92,500, or $97,950 with the executive package.

The price of the German vehicle won't change because the exchange rate between the New Zealand dollar and the deutschmark has remained reasonably stable. But the price of the Japanese vehicle will, because the dollar is fighting for survival against the yen.

Toyota New Zealand warned this year of new-vehicle price rises of between 10 and 12 per cent during 2000. It has gradually raised prices on some models over the past eight months and will put up prices again on September 1 by an average of 2 per cent as it seeks to offload some of the costs of an appreciating yen, up 26 per cent this year against the dollar.

Mazda will also raise its prices on some models on September 1 by up to 2.3 per cent. It will be Mazda's first price rise since March.

There will be others. There is already talk of the price of some Toyotas going up again on November 1, and Nissan is also understood to be looking at increases later in the year. Ford, which sources some vehicles from Japan, says there are no price increases in the pipeline.

Two carmakers, Mercedes-Benz and Subaru, will launch new cars within the next two months and a third, Holden, is expected to unveil its Commodore VX around Christmas.

But the price of the existing Subarus isn't expected to change until the New Year. The new Holden is expected to be marginally more expensive.

Martyn Dawson, marketing manager of Mercedes-Benz, does not expect prices to go up for some time.

"The last rise was in April when we had equipment changes and realigned some models," he says. "The last shipment of vehicles we landed were bought when the dollar was slightly weaker against the deutschmark than it is now. No, we certainly don't see any price increases - absolutely not."

So far this year the US dollar has gained about 17 per cent against the kiwi and the Australian dollar about 7 per cent.