Who's on the move?

She wants to know which of the car brands will improve over the next five years.  It sounds like a quick-and-easy question but there are booby traps on a couple of fronts.

For a start, what does she mean by 'improve'? Is it just sales, the big measure for brands like Toyota, or is it secondhand vaues - so critical to Audi - or the technology coming to companies like Hyundai and Kia, or any number of other subjective and objective measurements?

Looking back over the past five years, Audi has made huge sales gains by improving its showroom impact, Mazda has improved on all fronts and is now almost challenging Ford's sales in Australia, and Subaru has reinvented itself as one of the safest and most-dependable brands - almost the Volvo of the 21st century.

They are clear improvers.  But things will change in the next decade for many of the 50-plus car brands now sold in Australia.

For a start, expect big things from Great Wall, Geely and Chery of China. Probably not on the safety or quality front, but they will do some big numbers once they get cheap-and-cheerful passenger cars into local showrooms.

The Korea brands - Hyundai and Kia - are also set for big improvements. Both want to be top-five sellers in Australia before 2020, each has plans for significant local tweaking of their cars, and believe they can out-Toyota the world's biggest car brand at its own game.  What's that? Building sensible transport devices that suit the majority of drivers and doing it at a sensible price.

Audi will also continue to improve. It has monster plans for new models, as well as a burning desire to trump BMW on the sales charts.  BMW? It's looking hit-and-miss at the moment, based on cars as good as the new 5 Series in the same showroom as the underwhelming X1 and GT, but it knows its strengths and has a huge following.

Benz should also continue to power, Volvo is making big gains on styling that finally matches its safety but has a question over Chinese owners, and Mazda will continue to go forward.  On the local front, Toyota desperately needs something special in its showrooms. And the Camry hybrid is doing nothing to boost the competitiveness of its locally-made cars.

Ford? If it can convince Australians to buy a four-cylinder Falcon it will be a winner. But that is a big, big job and recent history shows little sign of the marketing muscle needed for the job.

Which brings us to Holden, which gambles next year with a local manufacturing commitment to the compact Cruze. It's a game changing move and one with the potential to make the red lion brand one of the biggest improvers of the next five and 10 years.

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