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The Melbourne Motor Show will be back in 2026 and be bigger than this year as organisers circle more brands and bigger reveals.
Last week’s sell-out Melbourne Motor Show will return in 2026 with nearly double the floor space and some brands already committing to attend.
The 2025 event was held over 11 bays at the Melbourne Convention Centre, but Melbourne Motor Show managing director Craig Phinn has confirmed to Drive all 20 available bays are now booked for next year’s show.
This should allow the show to encompass more car brands and retail space for the aftermarket community, up from this year’s circa-20 car brands and numerous other attractions.
Speaking on this year’s show, Phinn called the 2025 Melbourne Motor Show – the first time one has been held since 2011 – a “resounding success”.
“The public voted with their feet and hard-earned spending money,” Phinn said.
“[There were] 45,000 [attendees] over the weekend.”
Both Saturday and Sunday tickets sold out, which will lead to an expansion of the 2026 program over three days, rather than two, according to Phinn.
“2026 will be over three days and more space, which will give us the ability to hold 120,000 people comfortably,” Phinn said.
The last time a motor show was held in Melbourne in 2011, it reportedly attracted just under 200,000 attendees, over a period of 10 days.
As for expanding to other cities, such as Sydney that alternated hosting duties of the Australian International Motor Show over a decade ago, Phinn ruled out taking the show outside of Melbourne.
“We had 21 per cent of our tickets sold interstate, so 9000 Australians got on planes to come and see us and spend the weekend in Melbourne,” Phinn said.
“Our dream is to get some Victorian government support and keep it in Melbourne as the nation’s car show. Making Melbourne the automotive destination it once was again [with offerings like] F1, Moto GP, Air Show, and the Motor Show.”
At this year’s show, JAC and MG had a number of global reveals, while many models from Kia, Subaru, Deepal, Brabus, and Mahindra made their Australian debut.
Supporting these car brands were also a number of car-related products, such as Hot Wheels and Lego, as well as numerous aftermarket and modified vehicles and companies.
Tung Nguyen has been in the automotive journalism industry for over a decade, cutting his teeth at various publications before finding himself at Drive in 2024. With experience in news, feature, review, and advice writing, as well as video presentation skills, Tung is a do-it-all content creator. Tung’s love of cars first started as a child watching Transformers on Saturday mornings, as well as countless hours on PlayStation’s Gran Turismo, meaning his dream car is a Nissan GT-R, with a Liberty Walk widebody kit, of course.
