Hello from New Zealand
As a lot of cars in New Zealand were imported they usually had all the high end options. Growing up in NZ dad had an AP6 Regal, now I live in Australia the ones here are basic in comparision. GM Holden products from 67 on all had disc brakes in NZ, in Australia they still had drum options in 71! So little NZ has a lot of the good gear, it costs almost as much to import the base model as a top end model!
This particular car rolled off the production line at todd autobodies, in petone, a suburb of Wellington which is New Zealands capital city. Bit of geography there for the people unlucky enough to not live in gods own.
New Zealand was a different country back in those days, we had heavy regulation regarding importing cars to protect our own auto industry and imported cars either carried extortionary tariffs unless you were well heeled enough to have considerable 'overseas funds', money invested in foreign countries which on paper made importing look a lot nicer from a pure economic stand point for our small country. Because of this It was only well paid business owners, executives, doctors and the such who owned brand new cars, the rest paid reasonably good money for their vehicles second hand, this would have led to what Marty had noticed regarding the higher trim level.
In the late 80's and early 90's our local motor industry was on the rocks, as a lot of smaller operations world wide also wound down with economic pressures, import tariffs were removed as they were no longer necessary, New Zealand still has an affinity for second hand cars, and the majority of people dont buy depreciating assets brand spankers unless the cost need be not a concern to the individual, We currently have some of the cheapest car prices in the world, and a very high rate of car ownership, there are literally more then 2 cars to every kiwi !!!
Bit of a history lesson there, but we kiwis, like the aussies 'across the ditch' have a strong culture of being car crazy.
