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AUSTRALIANS are spending up big on luxury cars. yachts, designer jewellery and caravans like they never have before.
The mega-rich are spending millions of dollars on one-off items to distinguish themselves from the throng of new millionaires who have emerged out of the state's booming property market.
Ask anyone in the prestige product market and they will tell you that business has never been better.
Gone are the days when BMWs and Mercedes-Benz turned heads in the street.
Today, it's all about driving a Bentley or a Ferrari, or owning a luxury cruiser.
Riviera Marine at Coomera on Queensland's Gold Coast sold 57 boats each worth more than $1 million last year, reflecting a 25 per cent increase from the previous year.
Bentley - arguably one of the world's most recognised manufacturers of luxury vehicles - will ship 240 Continental GT vehicles, valued at $400,000 each, to Australia during the next 18 months.
Usually, Bentley sells no more than 30 vehicles in Australia in a year, but the nation now represents the fastest growing market in the world.
The company's Asia Pacific marketing manager David Wareing said people were turning away from traditional luxury cars because they were no longer unique.
"There is a trend occurring in Australia where people of high wealth are purchasing cars that distinguish them from others," Mr Wareing said.
Paul Gilles from John Cant Ferrari in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley said people were literally walking in the door and paying cash for cars worth half a million dollars.
"We are taking orders at unprecedented levels and the diversity of people buying them is so great," Mr Gilles said.
After two years of record high sales, Brisbane's Hardy Brothers Jewellers now stocks diamond rings worth hundreds of thousands of dollars as standard.
Similarly, there were 17,800 caravans and motor homes sold in Australia last year - reflecting a 60 per cent increase in sales over four years.
General manager of the Australian Caravan Association Ron Chapman said "People are selling their homes and downsizing to villas or units and buying a caravan and travelling around Australia," Mr Chapman said.