Premcar turns 30 in 2026. To celebrate, we’re sharing some of our carmaking knowledge. This time, it’s about the power of car culture.
Carmakers, depending on the cars they make, tend to like car enthusiasts.
Enthusiasts are often willing to spend more to get the special car they love.
And they’ll often spend more again customising it to their tastes.
Take a look inside car culture and its many movements. You’ll see it everywhere.
It’s natural for carmakers to want to tap into car culture and reach these buyers directly, but rarely are they successful.
It’s not because their cars fall short. Far from it in most instances.
The reason is because car culture isn’t made by carmakers.
It’s not even made by their cars, at least not directly.
It’s made by the experiences their cars enable.
More specifically, car culture comes from the symbols, rituals, artefacts and shared memories these experiences give rise to.
They produce stories and cultural mythologies that become attached to the car over time.
There are so many examples.
Take the air-cooled Porsche 911 sports car.
Porsche knew it had a winner when they unveiled it in 1963, but it took decades of racing success and generations of love from enthusiast communities to make it a cultural icon.
Just type ‘luftgekuhlt’ into Google to see what it’s become.
1960s muscle cars like the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Charger have followed similar paths.
They all became happily enmeshed in everything from motorsport to customising, and movements like surf culture, rock and roll music, and even Hollywood.
Off-roaders like the original Land Rover came to symbolise everything from British farming life to Australia’s Snowy-Hydro Electric Scheme.
For me, a personal favourite is the Nissan Skyline GT-R, the car Australia christened ‘Godzilla’.
Jim and I are heading to this weekend’s Australian GT-R Festival to celebrate the culture it’s created.
The message for carmakers is clear:
Over time, devotees help give car brands and model nameplates a magnetic glow.
And this infectious appeal even attracts non-enthusiast car buyers.
It’s still the same today.
The high-performance and locally tailored model lines we have engineered and created for automakers have almost always helped sell more of the donor models on which they are based.
We’ve seen this time and again over 30 years.
We still see it in today’s age of vehicle electrification.
Just the shape of an SUV is cultural; it’s crafted around social ideas of ‘sport’, ‘utility’ and mental images of weekend adventures.
Car culture of all kinds is enduring because the lifespan of a car culture movement is longer than the lifespan of the brand or nameplate that triggered it.
Enthusiasts and car culture are still important, even for car brands that don’t have a sports model in their range.
That’s because culture > the car.
If you’re a carmaker, it’s a fact worth remembering, especially if you want to attract the world’s best repeat and referral buyers.
Always remember: if your product plan doesn’t align with different buyers’ cultural ideas, you’ll miss many of them.
Localise your model range to satisfy local cultural desires.
Embrace car culture.
Bernie Quinn, CEO of Premcar
About Premcar:
Premcar Pty Ltd is a leading Australian vehicle engineering business that specialises in the automotive, defence and aerospace industries. For 30 years, global car-makers have made Premcar their go-to partner for the complete design, engineering and manufacture of niche-model new cars, full-scale new-vehicle development programs, and electric vehicle (EV) conversions and manufacturing. Premcar’s body of work is extensive. It is the name behind more than 213,000 new cars and 55,000 new-vehicle engines. The company has delivered technical advancements and sales success for major car brands from Europe, the USA, Japan, China and Australia. Visit premcar.au.
