Cars like the Subaru Forester, Nissan X-Trail and Volkswagen Golf are certainly a big reason for the success of their respective brands, but their respective manufacturers have more to offer than just these popular models.
As we did a few weeks ago, we compare the first cars sold in Australia from several popular manufacturers with their latest nameplates.
We have only included the latest nameplates offered by each of these companies in Australia, although existing nameplates may have subsequently received new powertrains and variants.
This is the second part of a feature series. You can read Part 1 here.
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Subaru: 360, Solterra
Subaru, like many other brands, started in Australia through private imports. A used car dealer in Ballarat, Victoria reportedly imported around 73 examples of this model Subaru 360 in 1961, making it the first Subaru to be sold locally.
Weighing just 450kg and powered by a 356cc two-cylinder engine, the 360 was mechanically compliant with Japanese kei car regulations and its spunky design earned it the nickname “Ladybug”. This helped it become extremely popular in its home market as brands sought to motorize Japanese citizens after the war.
But the 360 was poorly received in Australia and other overseas markets. This was particularly notable in the United States, where businessman Malcolm Bricklin imported 10,000 examples, after which the car was criticized for safety concerns and lack of performance, leading to its rejection by the public.
Meanwhile, the first Australian examples suffered from overheating problems, possibly due to our warmer climate and demands for higher driving speeds. While a later update eventually fixed the issue, the retailer stopped further imports due to the unsustainable losses caused by the 360.
However, this and subsequent models such as the Leone (1973) contributed to Subaru’s reputation as a rather unremarkable, uninspiring car brand in the 1970s and 1980s, even though the Japanese automaker had a unique selling point in its all-wheel drive models.
Subaru attempted to change its staid reputation by introducing sportier models such as the XT (1985) and SVX (1993), but these were largely unsuccessful. It wasn’t until the launch of the Impreza WRX in 1994 that Subaru truly came into the public eye, as the turbocharged rally sedan is now one of Subaru’s longest-running trademarks.
Several other cars, such as the Forester, Outback and the powerful Impreza WRX STI, followed and cemented the brand as a household name in the Australian market. Although Subaru is not always a top seller, it is always on the edge of the top 10, but Chinese challengers in particular have caused a stir.
Subaru’s latest model is meant to take on many of these new competitors, but it hasn’t been very popular so far. That’s that singlethe brand’s first fully electric vehicle – and a twin to the Toyota bZ4X – which launched in November 2023.
It’s currently Subaru’s slowest-selling local model, but orders are now open for a significantly updated version that offers revised looks, more power, more range and improved technology, all at a much lower price than before.
MORE: Explore the Subaru showroom
Chery: J1 and J11, Tiggo 9
The youngest brand on this list is Chery, although at 15 years old it has found the time to take two bites of the Australian cherry. The first attempt was in 2011 when it was launched J1 Light Hatch and J11 SUV.
Chery’s first two cars (and the small J3 that followed shortly after) were sold independently of Ateco, which is now responsible for brands such as Renault and Ram, and quickly ran afoul of government regulations requiring electronic stability control.
While this initially banned the brand from Victoria, federal implementation of these regulations forced the brand to discontinue the J1. And not before the price was dropped to an astounding $9,990 for the drive-away, making it one of the few sub-$10,000 drive-away cars sold after 2000.
The other problem these cars faced was safety. An ANCAP rating of three stars for the J1 prompted Chery to recall the model and address the structural integrity of its seats, while the J11 could only achieve two stars.
Later updates to the J3 and J11 brought new engines and electronic stability control, but a lack of factory support from Chery meant the brand’s Australian operations soon ground to a halt until 2015.
Chery’s second and current Australian attempt started in 2023, this time with full factory support from its Chinese headquarters. In March 2023, the company relaunched the Omoda 5 (now C5) SUV, which recorded more than 5,000 deliveries in its first year of sales, quickly surpassing the 4,670 sales recorded by Chery in total in its first attempt.
Since then, Chery has rapidly become a top 15 brand in Australia, constantly threatening Western brands such as Volkswagen and Nissan. It is even knocking on the door of the top 10, following compatriots BYD, GWM and MG.
Chery recently decided to redesign its brand positioning. The Omoda Jaecoo brand has hit the market with standalone Omoda and Jaecoo models – confusing, as we know – while Chery itself has continued to introduce new nameplates.
The latest is this Tiggo 9a large plug-in hybrid SUV coming soon to Australia.
MORE: Explore the Chery showroom
Nissan: Type 12 Phaeton, Ariya
The first Nissan imported into Australia wasn’t called Nissan at all. Instead, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it was a Datsun, namely the Type 12 Phaeton in 1934.
According to Nissan, the Type 12 Phaeton is “Nissan’s oldest model, having been produced as far back as December 1933 when Nissan Motor Corporation was founded,” making it the oldest model in the brand’s heritage collection.
The Type 12 Phaeton went into production in early 1933, was less than three meters long and produced only 9 kW of power. The use of “Phaeton” refers to its body style, as it was a convertible four-seater with a fabric roof; It is not to be confused with Volkswagen’s future ultra-luxury flagship Phaeton, which ironically wasn’t a Phaeton at all.
It replaced the Type 11, which was launched in 1932, with the only difference being that it had a larger engine – Nissan’s pace was such that the Type 12 was replaced by the Type 13 in 1934. The Type 13 was supposedly more stylish.
Then, in 1937, the first model with a Nissan badge, the 70 sedan, broke out of camouflage.
After shifting its focus to building trucks, airplanes, and engines for the Japanese military before World War II, Nissan returned to building cars. Among the first cars to emerge from the restarted development was something that was arguably ahead of its time: the Tama, a fully electric car with a range of just under 100 km that was built in response to oil shortages.
Although the Tama hasn’t been brought to Australia, it’s a rough preview of Nissan’s latest nameplate. But between then and now, Nissan introduced the first Patrol locally in 1960 (two years after Toyota introduced the rival LandCruiser FJ25) and founded Nissan Australia in 1966 with the opening of a production facility in Sydney.
From 1983 the Datsun name was phased out, and throughout the 2000s Nissan Australia largely abandoned passenger cars in favor of SUVs, with the exception of the GT-R, 350Z and 370Z sports cars. There was also the electric Leaf, which paved the way for the brand’s newest local signature: the That’s it.
The much-delayed electric SUV has been a long time coming for Australia, having launched in 2020. With a range of up to 504 km and the option of all-wheel drive, the Ariya was launched in September 2025.
MORE: Explore the Nissan showroom
Volkswagen: Type 82 “Kübelwagen”, Tayron
The first Volkswagens in Australia emerged from the Second World War. The story goes that Australian soldiers were the first from our country to come into contact with the German Volkswagen in the early 1940s during the fighting in North Africa.
The German army decided to use the model designed by Ferdinand Porsche Kübelwagen as light transport vehicles in the region, with several examples captured by Australian soldiers and used behind the lines by Australian field officers. When the Australian armed forces withdrew in 1943, all Kübelwagen were left behind in the African desert.
Let’s rewind to 1946 when the Australian Army imported a wartime Kübelwagen that the British Army had sourced from Wolfsburg (Volkswagen HQ), making it the first Volkswagen in Australia. The Army remembered its wartime competence and wanted to evaluate the Kübelwagen in local conditions for possible Australian use.
This very Kübelwagen is now part of the collection of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The first VW passenger cars followed in 1947, when Australia bought eight cars for 160 pounds each (about A$11,000 today) as part of war reparations payments.
Six remained in Germany, while two (a Type 11 sedan and a Type 51 sedan with Kübelwagen chassis) were shipped to Melbourne as prototypes. However, the first privately imported and owned Volkswagen was a black right-hand drive model from 1946, imported in 1951 by a German immigrant.
Volkswagen established an official Australian subsidiary in 1953, and the first cars went on sale in November of that year. Tax incentives led to a shift to local assembly, with the Beetle being the first to be manufactured on a large scale in Australia.
In 1967 the first VW developed in Australia came onto the market, the Country Buggy (similar to the legendary Thing), which was built from Beetle and station wagon components. Local assembly continued in Clayton, Victoria until 1976, when Nissan took ownership and control of the former Volkswagen factory.
After a turbulent 1980s, the German brand slowly grew and cemented its place in the Australian market. Our abridged history cannot miss the Dieselgate scandal, in which Volkswagen cheated on the emissions tests of some of its diesel models in 2015.
Nevertheless, Volkswagen has consistently been one of the top 15 brands in the Australian market in recent years. His latest new nameplate is this Tayrona seven-seat SUV based on the Tiguan that serves as a direct replacement for the defunct Tiguan Allspace. It was launched in September 2025.
MORE: Explore the Volkswagen showroom
