Will supply of new Isuzu D-Max 2021 be affected by pandemic?

Isuzu Ute Australia is launching its all-new and hotly-anticipated D-Max ute amidst a global pandemic, but the brand believes it has enough supply to meet projected customer demand.

Speaking to journalists at the D-Max’s online reveal, Isuzu Ute Australia managing director Hiroyasu Sato said the brand does not foresee any issues in fulfilling customer orders, even with slower transit times due to COVID-19.

“As far as we’re informed, the situation in Thailand, where the factory is, is quite calm and the pandemic is, in a way, controlled,” he said.

“We hope this situation is going to continue.”

The brand would not be drawn on exactly how popular the new D-Max is expected to be, but is targeting 10 per cent of the ute market, or around 20,000 annual sales based on last year’s figures.

However, Isuzu Ute Australia general manager of sales Ben Jaeger did confirm to CarsGuide that expressions of interest on the brand’s teaser site had reached into the “thousands” before the official public reveal of the Aussie-spec D-Max.

“Obviously we have a landing page for the teaser campaign at the moment where people can register their interest at the moment in the product, and I can’t divulge exactly what numbers we’ve got, but its thousands of registrations onto that site, which are all going to be leads that are going directly to the dealerships,” he said.

“We’ve been really pleasantly surprised by the interest.

“We’re pretty confident it’s going to be well received, that people are already hungry for it, and we’re pretty confident that the product that we’re putting out there is going to meet their needs.”

With four grades – SX, LS-M, LS-U and X-Terrain – available, as well as single cab, space cab and dual cab body styles, not to mention 4×2, 4×4, manual and automatic, options, Isuzu is juggling 20 variants of the new D-Max priced from $32,200 before on-road costs.

Again, the brand would not be drawn on which variants they expect to be most popular, but given the extension of the government’s instant asset tax write-off until the end of 2020, and the booming popularity of ‘lifestyle’ utes such as the Ford Ranger Wildtrak and Toytoa HiLux Rogue, we expect many customers will opt for a D-Max on the upper end of the spectrum.