That’s essentially what they did - the most recent “commodore“ was a reworked and rebadged Vectra, sold into europe with anything from a 1.6L up.
They needed to make a good small-to-medium SUV, they were and still are no good in that sector. And that’s where the sales are.
per Latest Australian Car Sales Statistics & Survey | Budget Direct
Other than bogans and boomers, the world’s moved on from big sedans.
Yep, and they drank the bath water from Holden loyalists.
GM have sold or killed off half a dozen brands over the last 10-15 years.
Pontiac, Buick, Opel, Vauxhall, Saab.
Call me a commie, but I almost wonder if a publicly listed multinational are not doing it for altruism.
Grew up with one of these, bloody ripper
To a degree they did, they called it a Cruze. Not a HSV version, although they probably studied it. “Doesn’t fit HSV DNA/insufficient volume” was probably the conclusion.
That segment of the market is hard to make money in. Cost of designing/manufacturing/shipping/marketing a $20k Cruze/3/Focus/etc is similar to a $40k Commodore/6/etc, and you’ve got half the income coming in.
And a locally produced Cruze is made with Australian labour costs, as opposed to a Thai built 3. The 3 has to be shipped from Thailand, but it can be made in a super efficient plant that has enormous scale efficiencies, as opposed to an Australian plant making 25k Cruzes a year.
What Hap said.
The sedan sales plummeted and Holden never managed to shift to/get a foothold in the new market. Looking at the sales figures last year, the only car even remotely close to an old school “family” sedan in the top 20 is the Camry, which is more a medium size car anyway. It was in 17th place with 16000 sales. At its peak in the 90’s, Holden moved almost 100,000 Commodores per year…
Ford were not much better, but whether it be foresight/good fortune, the Ranger ute has literally saved them. Of 64000 sales in 2019, an astonishing 40k were Rangers. That said, they’re in massive trouble too.
If you exclude the Ute market - which is largely trade driven - the most popular cars were Corolla, I30, Cx-5, Mazda 3, RAV4, Cerrato. Small cars and smallish SUV’s . That’s the current trend. Holden never cracked that market. I’m not even sure they really tried, the rebadged Euro Opels never gained traction at all.
I’ve been fortunate to get an inside tour of the Triumph motorcycle factory in Thailand. It’s very high tech CNC machinery , and cheap but increasingly well trained labour. Triumph still build some bikes in the UK, but they’ve cashed in on their “heritage” by increasing profit margins via Asian plants. If the car plants are similar - and they will be - then there was zero chance of Australian manufacturing competing with that, doubly so if you need to re-tool for a whole new genre of cars, which Holden needed to do by the mid-2000’s. Simply put, we (the buying public) turned to cars that we could not afford to build. But GM have made plenty of wrong calls right around the world. Even their Thai production plant is being sold off. They’re cooked.
I do wonder if we may see a resurrection of Holden Australia somewhere down the track . John Bloor brought Triumph back from the dead by focusing on small volume, niche products and it’s traditional name. Hard to see it happening though.
GM are doing OK in USA, in a soft market for new cars. These are 2019 figures with first coumn new car sales in December 2019, where everyone had poor sales.
To be honest; while new cars in USA are much cheaper than Australia, not sure why anyone would buy new when used cars are dirt cheap, fuel is cheap, rego is cheap, car hoon paradise.
Uh uh, … 
nope.
Torana maybe, … the Gemini became a running joke for decades. To the point where most in the Mechanic trade ended up referring to BMW’s as “German Gemini’s” (Beemers were pretty shitt back then)
I want one…
When I swapped to a CX-5, I had a look at the GMH alternative, the Captiva, because a niece had a good position there and could have got me a good price.
As far as I recall, the Captiva was more expensive and nowhere near as good specs as the CX-5. It was a matter of five minutes dropping it off the list.
Yep, looked at the captiva when we bought the Santa Fe. No contest. It was quite crude by comparison.
Surprised it lasted that long. They’re a mile off the Kia/Hyundai and Mazdas in that sector.
An early version of the new mid-engine Corvette — just a reminder, no more utes for us!
Boomers love SUVs. Much easier to get in and out of when compared to sedans.
Our first car was an Austin, back in the days when they were still reasonably well built. After a year in America when we had a 1951 Chrysler Windsor Deluxe which we drove from Massachusetts to San Francisco and then down to LA, through the desert through the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas (1958, just beginning to grow) and on to Austin, Texas — great car, that we christened Clementine. Then back to 0z and our first Holden, a 1958 FC in two-tone blue like yours, CJ, GWP854. That was eventually replaced by a Gundagai Grey EH wagon, beautiful car. My own first car was a 1961 EJ (I think), in a gorgeous pink with grey fins; it took me across the Nullarbor and back in the days when it wasn’t sealed all the way. After that we rather deserted the Aussie cars, although I did have a locally made Toyota Aurion in a rather violent shade of blue that my son still drives. I’ve been driving a 2010 Citroën C5 diesel for the last 8 years; I keep thinking it’s time for a change but it’s such a fantastic car that I can’t find anything I want to change to.
