COPPING the contract to replace the police’s Holden Commodore patrol cars with its Superb station wagon will likely at least double Skoda’s market share, the make has acknowledged.
Neither Police nor Skoda NZ will say how cars are involved, but in a statement about the deal the Police identified that the NZ force presently has more than 2000 front-line cars nationally.
Skoda New Zealand boss Rodney Gillard says this is by far his operation’s biggest fleet opportunity, much larger than a bulk deal to provision cars to Corporate Cabs, which started four years ago, is ongoing and has so far provisioned several hundred cars.
Last year Skoda sold around 1500 cars in New Zealand, for a 1.6 percent passenger market share, and is looking at a 1200 unit tally this year, mainly to Covid-19’s impact on buying trends and product availability. He suggested this arrangement will put Skoda in front of a much bigger audience than it has at present and did not discount suggestion that the count might be high enough to double the annual registrations volume.
Police say the Superb wagon has been accepted in two 2.0-litre petrol versions, a 162kW front-drive and 206kW four-wheel-drive. The supply kicks in from April, 2021.
The cars are essentially standard production models, which will be converted into patrol guise on arrival in New Zealand, but equivalents that represent in the showroom are presently in slightly different tune; 140kW and 200kW.
The engines offered to Police have been in models presented here previously, and Skoda NZ has suggested they might yet return in other showroom-bound versions of the Superb. The closest equivalents on public sale at present appear to be the front-drive Super Style, which has the 140kW engine and costs $65,000, and the Superb Sportline 4x4, with the 200kW engine. It’s a $71,990 car.
The fleet changeover was forced by General Motors determining in February that Holden, which held the contract for almost 20 years with the Commodore, would cease making cars and retire as a brand.
That took the NZ Police by surprise. The hunt for a new preferred vehicle supplier was fast-tracked; they went to the new car industry with a request for proposals in July and the tender closed on August 21. Seven brands presented 27 vehicles for consideration; of these 12 were short-listed for the job, including at least one hybrid and several electrics.