Two wheels scoot up sales ranks

New Zealand Herald
3 June 2008
By Jacqueline Smith

Michael Davies says two-wheelers are not about to rule New Zealand roads.

Motorists may be out of pocket but scooter and motorcycle dealers across the country are reaping the benefits of soaring petrol prices.

Michael Davies, the owner of Retroscooter on Auckland's Great North Rd, said the company's sales had accelerated over the past 18 months and he had no doubt this coincided with rising petrol costs.

Scooter sales are generally seasonal - cold, wet weather draws people to the warmth of their cars - but Davies said sales were looking to remain high this winter as the price of 91 octane flickers around $2 a litre.

"I think it's reached the point now where people are seriously looking at alternatives regardless of the weather and how cold it is."

His customers, mostly male, range from students to doctors and lawyers.

Davies said commuters saved more than $40 a week on parking and fuel when swapping their car for a scooter.

Land Transport New Zealand says motorcycle registrations from January to April this year were up 14 per cent on the same period in 2007, while car registrations were down 3 per cent.

Davies said he expected his sales to rise 50 per cent more next summer.

Tom Peck, the general manager of Suzuki New Zealand, said motorists right across the country were realising a scooter would get them 10 times further for every dollar of fuel.

While stores near universities were selling the highest number of scooters, commuter models were also selling well in rural areas, Peck said.

Suzuki's most popular model was the AZ 50, with a 50cc engine, which for a typical Auckland commuter would use $8-$10 of fuel a week, he said.

The most popular motorcycle was the VL 250cc get-to-work bike.

Kevin Golding, the owner of central Auckland's Scooterworld, which focuses on scooter parts, said the store had noticed an increase in people resurrecting old scooters, but not only because of petrol costs.

He said the older two-stroke models were expensive to run, and most of their riders did so to avoid traffic congestion and parking costs.

Steve Meadows, national sales manager for Blue Wing Honda, which imports scooters and motorcycles, said the company began focusing on scooters when it noticed sales increasing two years ago.

To the company's surprise, sales were high not only in the cities but also in the small towns, particularly Masterton and Rangiora, he said.

Honda's motorcycle sales were also high and Meadows said the company's family motorcycle weekends attracted up to 800 people.

"In general, whether it's off road for fun, commuting for work or road bikes for weekend fun, there's certainly more being sold," he said.

But rather than replacing cars with motorcycles and scooters, Meadows said New Zealanders seemed to be adding them to the fleet.

He expected customer demand to continue over the coming years, but not at the recent rates.

Davies said the rise in registrations did not mean roads would be flooded with two wheelers instead of four.

Before the flood of cheap Japanese imports in the 1990s, the poor man's transport was the motorcycle, he said.

"To put things into perspective, in 1972 there were 38,000 registered motorcycles on New Zealand roads.

We have a long way to go before we have the same number of motorcycles on the road that we had 30 or 40 years ago."