Or any BMW for that matter..
Someone told me that it is typical to see E46 M3's in the $60-$100k range, USED there! In disbelief, I googled and found a site:

http://www.redbookasiapacific.com/au/home.php

Copied and pasted from this site, with some other cars for comparison:

MY02 E46 Coupe 2dr Man 6sp 3.2i
Prices based on km 60,000 - 110,000
Trade in price guide* $53,000 - $58,200
National average price - private sale* $61,200 - $67,000
Price when new (RRP) $141,100

MY04 WRX STi Sedan 4dr Man 6sp 4WD 2.0T Prices based on km 60,000 - 100,000
Trade in price guide $29,900 - $32,900
National average price - private sale* $35,200 - $38,600
Price when new $56,630

2002 HONDA CIVIC
7th Gen. MY2002 GLi Sedan 4dr Man 5sp 1.7i
Prices based on km 90,000 - 150,000
Trade in price guide* $8,600 - $10,200
National average price - private sale* $11,100 - $12,900
Price when new (RRP) $22,950

Now, according to google, 1 AUD = 0.94 USD.. But that does not explain the large difference. Can somebody that is familiar with Australia shed some light on this? Must suck to be into cars in Australia!

Same is true in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc. High import duties on luxury goods in nearly all of Asia-Pac.

Look even closer to home, at Canadian BMW prices. At least Australia has the excuse of higher shipping costs from Germany or South Carolina.

Something else to consider is not the exchange rate, but what the retail price was in AUD when those cars were new. Used car prices usually don't reflect any fluctuations in exchange rates, just standard depreciation.

Actually, that's not quite true...if the exchange rate becomes less favorable for new cars, used cars tend to hold more value, slowing depreciation, because they're still significantly cheaper than a new car, and the market will tend to bear higher used car prices.

But the real deal is, BMW and the other import marques tend to discount when selling in the US, because the market is huge and even discounted they still make a solid profit. Plus, if they don't try to stay somewhat price competitive, they can and will lose sales to domestic US cars, and domestic produced "import" cars.

Basically, the RRP for an E46 M3 in Australia was about $142,000.00. The E92 M3 is now $157,000.00.

That includes the luxury car tax and import tax. Add stamp duty, registration etc etc and you have another $3K on top of that.

The reasons its so expensive (and prohibitively so) is because we ship them from Germany and ALSO have to pay these taxes.

IIRC import tax is several thousand dollars, and luxury car tax is much the same. It doesnt explain the disparity between the prices for US and Oz M3's :(

But we got the Euro 3.0L and 3.2L M3's here. Hoorah!

yeah thats crazy expensive.
But how much did the euro e36's cost?!

And what do say, FD rx7's go for down there? How about r34 Skylines?

I think the taxes may also be in place to "protect" the local car manufacturers. *yawn*

yeah thats crazy expensive.
But how much did the euro e36's cost?!

And what do say, FD rx7's go for down there? How about r34 Skylines?

From memory, the RRP on an E36 M3 was $131k excluding options and on road costs.

A mint Series 8 RX-7 is going to cost around $35k USD. At the moment, there is a Tommy Kiara Edition R34 GTR with a $77k USD asking price. A regular GTR can be had for $10-15k less. Both cars are grey imports and were never officially sold here by Mazda or Nissan.