South Africa’s Motor Industry Development Programme (MIDP) adopted in 1995 was hailed as a successful and innovative industry policy by all stakeholders. Despite attracting significant investment by almost all major global vehicle manufacturers, consensuses is declining that the programme can successfully steer the industry to sustainable future growth. The paper presents findings of an investigation into the declining consensus on the MIDP. A review of the MIDP mental model is done. Industry performance data from 1995 to 2004 is evaluated against programme objectives. Findings show that the declining consensus is due to failure to acknowledge interrelationships among industry variables. The programme success has not been across board and policy makers have paid little attention to synergies between industry sectors. The MIDP presents a classical case of a system dynamics problem that can benefit from system dynamics modeling.