Every SUV and ute discontinued in Australia in 2024

2024 was a big year for discontinuations.

Not only were several long-running models axed, but an entire brand – Citroen – announced it was pulling up stumps.

While it wasn’t quite the massacre that 2020 was (when Holden and Infiniti shut up shop) or 2021 (when a new Australian Design Rule killed off several popular models), this year saw plenty of high-profile axings.

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Ford killed one of its last remaining SUVs in Australia, Toyota officially pulled the plug on its V8-powered LandCruiser 70 Series, and global production ended for a raft of Jaguar and Maserati models.

We’ve split up this year’s casualties into two articles: one focusing on the SUVs and utes discontinued this year, and one focusing on the passenger cars.

Scroll below for all the SUVs and utes axed this year, or click on one of the links below to take you directly to a retired model.

• Citroen C5 Aircross
• Ford Puma
• Jaguar E-Pace
• Jaguar I-Pace
• Maserati Levante
• Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series V8

Citroen C5 Aircross

The C5 Aircross was Citroen’s best-selling vehicle in Australia, but that’s not saying much.

Just 53 examples of the mid-sized SUV, related to the Peugeot 3008, were sold this year to the end of November. While that’s up from last year’s tally, it still puts the Citroen dead last in its segment, with Peugeot selling more than six times as many 3008s – itself not a huge seller.

Between its local launch in 2019 and the end of November, Citroen sold just 350 C5 Aircross SUVs in Australia.

Not helping the niche Toyota RAV4 rival was Citroen’s limited dealer network, as well as a limited lineup.

A 2023 facelift brought not only visual tweaks but also an upgraded powertrain. Still using a turbocharged 1.6-litre four-cylinder petrol engine, the updated model substituted the six-speed automatic for an eight-speed, gaining 12kW and 10Nm for total outputs of 133kW and 250Nm.

However, the facelift brought with it a price increase, and Citroen sales had dwindled so much over the years that it could scarcely afford to charge a premium over more mainstream brands.

There’s a new generation of C5 Aircross coming to Europe, but it won’t be boarding the ship here as the Citroen brand was retired this year.

MORE: Citroen leaving Australia after more than 100 years, importer focusing on Peugeot
MORE: Everything Citroen C5 Aircross

Ford Puma

This cat didn’t have nine lives.

The Ford Puma lives on in Europe, where it’s been treated to a facelift and was even joined by an electric version called the Gen-E.

The Puma Gen-E was supposed to come here, but Ford Australia recently cancelled its plans.

“There are many factors that influence whether a vehicle’s business case stacks up – such as economic trends, material costs, consumer incentives and global supply chain – and after weighing these up, we took the call that we were better to focus our electrified lineup on other models,” said Ford Australia early in December.

As for the facelifted combustion-powered Puma, Ford Australia made no such commitment to bring it here.

In axing the Puma in February this year, shortly before the reveal of the facelifted model, Ford Australia said it hadn’t made the decision lightly but had decided to focus on commercial vehicles and the Mustang family.

This follows last year’s announcement from the Blue Oval that the mid-sized Escape would also be axed, so the facelifted version of Ford’s Toyota RAV4 rival never ended up coming here either.

Axing the Escape laves Ford without an entrant in Australia’s largest segment by volume, while axing the Puma sees the brand without a traditional entry-level model to attract people to the brand.

The most affordable Ford is now the single-cab/chassis Ranger, while the Blue Oval’s most affordable SUV is the circa-$54,000 Everest – which costs close to twice the price of the defunct Puma, which opened at just over $30,000 before on-roads.

While the Puma sold in similar numbers to the Escape, it commanded a greater share of the less competitive light SUV segment. It comfortably outsold the Renault Captur and Nissan Juke in recent years, though rivals like the Hyundai Venue and Toyota Yaris Cross outsold it by around three-to-one.

That was despite the Puma being quite a good thing.

It launched here in 2020 as a replacement for the unloved Ecosport, a light SUV initially designed for developing markets.

The Puma shared its platform with the Fiesta, and was widely regarded as a genuinely good steer like its hatchback sibling. Sadly, we never got the more powerful ST version here, with all Pumas instead featuring a 92kW/170Nm turbocharged 1.0-litre three-cylinder engine mated with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission.

Ford sold 597 examples of the Puma that year, growing to 3218 in 2021, but this slipped to 2408 sales in 2022 and then 2027 sales in 2023. To the end of November this year, Ford sold 839 examples as it ran out remaining stock.

Ford’s local SUV lineup here now consists solely of the electric Mustang Mach-E and the diesel-powered Everest.

MORE: Ford Australia kills its most affordable vehicle in favour of vans, electric cars
MORE: Everything Ford Puma

Jaguar E-Pace

It’s not often a brand axes almost its entire lineup without also being shuttered itself, but that’s just what has happened at Jaguar.

The British brand’s attempts this century to take on BMW and Mercedes-Benz directly, first with the S-Type and X-Type and more recently with its current lineup of sedans and SUVs, have come to nought. Jaguar executives themselves have said the brand today has “no equity whatsoever”. Yikes.

Jaguar is reinventing itself as a more exclusive, more expensive, electric-only brand, which means chip chip cheerio to the current F-Type sports car, the E-Pace, F-Pace and I-Pace SUVs, and the XE and XF sedans.

Piecing together what is being retired when, however, is a little complicated. Vehicles built in the Castle Bromwich plant in the UK – the F-Type, XE and XF – all ended production earlier this year.

Overseas reports have subsequently indicated the E-Pace and I-Pace, built by Magna Steyr in Austria, were also exiting production this year, with the UK-built F-Pace reportedly getting a stay of execution until 2025 or 2026.

The F-Pace arguably is the more impressive of Jaguar’s two combustion-powered SUVs, not just because it can be had in hot supercharged V8 SVR guise, but because all models have largely aluminium construction.

This means despite being larger, the F-Pace weighs essentially the same as the E-Pace – comparing P250 models, there’s a difference of around 40kg.

While the F-Pace shares its rear/all-wheel drive platform with the Range Rover Velar, the E-Pace features the same front/all-wheel drive underpinnings as the Range Rover Evoque. It entered production in 2017, around a year after the F-Pace, and arrived here in 2018.

Jaguar offered a range of petrol and diesel powertrains during the E-Pace’s run, though Australia missed out on plug-in hybrid power (something the local-spec F-Pace has finally received).

The E-Pace became Jaguar’s best-seller locally, at least until 2022 when the F-Pace took the lead. Parent JLR was prioritising production of more upmarket, higher-margin models during this time, and sales of the E-Pace and its Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Discovery Sport platform-mates all dropped around this time.

To the end of November 2024, Jaguar sold 3710 E-Paces in Australia during its run. But while it may have been the brand’s best-seller for several years, it lived in the shadow of its Range Rover Evoque cousin, which has consistently outsold it – not to mention its German SUV rivals, which left it in the dust.

Jaguar is expected to still offer an SUV in its new, more exclusive, electric-only era, but it won’t be as accessible as the E-Pace.

MORE: Everything Jaguar E-Pace

Jaguar I-Pace

You can’t accuse Jaguar of being late to the EV game.

The Jaguar I-Pace first entered production in 2018, before other premium brands like Lexus, Maserati and Volvo, among others, would enter the EV space.

And while the first EV efforts of some premium brands were based on combustion-powered models, the I-Pace debuted a dedicated EV platform and featured futuristic and yet distinctively Jaguar styling penned under former design boss Ian Callum.

Critical acclaim was immense, with the I-Pace winning various awards including European Car of the Year.

And yet despite the effort Jaguar went to, the I-Pace is being discontinued without a replacement like the rest of the brand’s current lineup.

Where BMW’s first EV, the i3, was a quirky city car, the I-Pace targeted the mid-sized SUV market, the volume-selling space where models like the BMW iX3 and Lexus RZ now dwell.

Like the BMW i3, however, the I-Pace’s platform never underpinned anything else. But where BMW eventually rolled out other EVs, the I-Pace remained Jaguar’s only EV.

It has proved a rather disappointing seller for the British brand, peaking in 2019 with 17,355 sales globally. I-Pace sales have continued to decline since then, with sales dropping to around 7000 units last year.

In Australia, it has been a virtual non-entity. From a height of 155 sales in 2019, Jaguar sold just 23 examples here in 2022.

From its 2018 launch until the end of November this year, Jaguar has sold 377 examples in Australia.

Updates during its run were minor – a new infotainment system in 2020, and minor visual tweaks for model year 2024.

Even as the I-Pace comes to its end, it still packs the same powertrain as it did at launch: a 294kW/696Nm dual-motor all-wheel drive powertrain powered by a 90kWh lithium-ion battery.

Range is a claimed 446km on the NEDC cycle and the DC fast-charge rate is 104kW, figures that were much more impressive in 2018 than they are today.

The I-Pace has also suffered from an increasingly large range of rivals, with even Cadillac launching in Australia’s luxury electric SUV fray.

MORE: Everything Jaguar I-Pace

Maserati Levante

The Maserati Levante is another model that technically remains on price lists, but which ended production this year.

Maserati revealed the Kubang concept car at the 2011 Frankfurt motor show, which previewed what would become the Trident brand’s first SUV.

The Levante didn’t debut until the 2016 Geneva motor show, riding the M156 platform of the Ghibli and Quattroporte sedans.

The Porsche Cayenne had been seen as sacrilegious by fans of the German brand at launch, but by the time Maserati put its trident badge on an SUV the controversy had calmed.

Launched here in 2017, the Levante went up against the Cayenne and, until the smaller Grecale arrived in 2023, it was Maserati’s most affordable model and its only SUV.

A variety of powertrains were offered during the Levante’s run, including twin-turbocharged V6 and V8 petrol engines, a turbo-diesel V6, and a turbocharged four-cylinder mild-hybrid. However, all Levantes were all-wheel drive and used an eight-speed automatic transmission.

Unlike the Cayenne, the Levante was never offered with plug-in hybrid power.

The highlight of the Levante range was the twin-turbo 3.8-litre V8 developed and supplied by Ferrari, which powered the GTS and later Trofeo versions of the large SUV. The latter had outputs of 427kW and 730Nm.

From first registrations in 2016 to the end of November 2024, Maserati sold 2342 Levantes in Australia. Over the same period Porsche sold just over five times as many Cayennes.

Its best year was actually towards the end – 2022, when Maserati sold 436 examples. That saw it outsell the Audi Q8 (423 sales), Jaguar F-Pace (316), and Range Rover Velar (319).

The Levante and its Quattroporte sibling are set to be replaced by electric vehicles (EVs). However, Maserati confirmed earlier this year that these won’t arrive until 2027 and 2028, respectively.

From 2028, Maserati plans to only sell EVs, though it’s unclear if this will change now that the CEO of parent company Stellantis, Carlos Tavares, has stepped down.

Stellantis’ new family of STLA-branded platforms support multiple propulsion types, so a petrol-powered next-generation Levante isn’t completely out of the question. Just don’t expect it to pack a sweet V8 like the outgoing model.

MORE: Everything Maserati Levante

Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series V8

After launching a 2.8-litre turbo-diesel four-cylinder automatic version of the iconic LandCruiser 70 Series in 2007, Toyota officially axed the long-running ‘1VD-FTV’ 4.5-litre turbo-diesel V8 manual option in July.

However, with a long order list to get through after orders had been paused for two years, Toyota said the V8-powered 70 Series wasn’t disappearing just yet.

It said production of V8-powered 70 Series models would end in September 2024, except for 79 Series GXL single- and double-cab utes, with final deliveries of V8-powered wagons, Troop Carriers, and Workmate and GX utes due this year.

Production of GXL utes, in contrast, is set to continue “well into next year”, with customer deliveries to be completed during the fourth quarter of 2025.

Between 2007 and June 2024, Toyota says it sold more than 171,010 V8-powered 70 Series vehicles in Australia.

So why kill the 70 Series V8 now, when it appears as sought-after as ever?

In July, Toyota Australia vice president of sales, marketing and franchise operations, Sean Hanley, said that while the incoming New Vehicle Efficiency Standard (NVES) played a part, it was “consumer sentiment” that played the biggest role.

Toyota Australia claims it was a “joint decision” between it and head office in Japan.

If you want to place an order for a new 70 Series, you’ll have to settle for one powered by the same 2.8-litre turbo-diesel as the HiLux and Prado (but without mild-hybrid tech), though it will comewith something the V8 never did – an automatic transmission.

Not only that, the four-cylinder 70 Series actually makes 70Nm more torque at 500Nm, while being just 1kW less powerful at 150kW.

MORE: Everything Toyota LandCruiser 70 Series
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