We can write countless stories about why pulling the plug on local manufacturing in Australia by GM Holden and, subsequently, killing off the locally-produced Commodore may not have been the best move. But, leave it to the locals to really hit the nail on the head.
The Motor Report recently penned a report detailing Holden’s huge problem: the Commodore.
Analyzing sales numbers tell everything one needs to know. The Holden Commodore and its variants, ute, sportwagon and Caprice are what’s keeping Australian consumers at Holden.
Holden’s year-to-date sales ring in at a solid 67,502. But, it becomes bleak when boiling it down. 22,257 of those sales are Commodores and its variants. That means, without the Commodore, Holden would have only moved 45,245 vehicles, placing it in seventh place in the sales war.
Yikes.
The once booming automaker begins to look pressed for time to find a formidable replacement for the vehicle so many hold near and dear. But, unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
While Holden continues to take care of damage control, Opel has been busy engineering the next Opel Insignia, which  has been tapped to become the 2018 Holden Commodore. It will be front-wheel drive, ride on GM’s E2XX platform and it will not offer a V8 engine.
We’re not sure who has conducted Holden’s marketing research, but it seems blatantly backwards.
Combine this with a weak Aussie dollar, and it almost seems Stefan Jacoby, GM Vice President of International Relations, made a knee-jerk reaction. With the dollar expected to remain weak in the foreseeable future, Australia has quickly become a favorable export market once again.
Holden has reiterated on multiple occasions there will be a new, rear-wheel drive, V8-powered vehicle to join its lineup in the future. But it won’t be the 2016 Chevrolet Camaro, and the 2016 Corvette Stingray’s hopes are dim.
Could GM have a trick up its sleeve? It’s possible.
But it won’t be a Commodore.
Comments
Rear-biased, torque-vectoring AWD is all that can save Holden at this point. Unless someone green-lights Avenir.
If you can send most of the power to the rear wheels at lift off, most people in Oz, and the rest of the world for that matter, won’t care… so long as the MSRP doesn’t jump $10k in the process.
If the Focus RS can learn that trick, maybe Monza can too.
it’s an aussie thing,not a GM thing…
we bloody hate almost anything that isn’t RWD…it’s been in the blood of Australian motoring since the beginning…so quit trying to say that an AWD is GM’s only option for the Aussie market…
because commodore drivers like myself…
we love the rear wheels…i like FWD and AWD cars as well…
but nothing beats the driving exerience and fun of a RWD car…but only a true car enthusiast can make that call…because they’re the only ones that really know.
It’s only the brand’s biggest problem going forward. It’s been the brand’s hero for so long and has helped Holden sell the Korean junk for the past decade.
What a great read for this morning. They are still selling about 2200 Commodores every month – lately they seem everywhere.
And many of them have a SS badge on them. A beautiful sight.
The Captivas are junk – even staff at a Holden dealer told me they fall to pieces early. Colorado isn’t a big seller. Barina ??? The Cruze looks old (not as old as the Captiva) – my uncle bought a hatch recently – doesnt like it much and only bought it because my cousin told him it’s Aussie made. He really wanted a Corolla. Good luck with the Cruze when they come from Korea.
Maybe they’ll stretch out the Commodore for another 12 months with another face-lift. Maybe not. Maybe you need to be an Aussie to understand.
Looks like their only option is to bring the CTS down under, which will end up giving Aussies sticker shock (think GTO/G8) after all the destination fees are tacked on to the base price. Irony at it’s best.
Unfortunately the Alpha platform was not built to support RHD applications. Was left on the cutting room floor by Leone when he took Zeta and started remaking it into Alpha.
Same reason Camaro can’t now be sold in Australia. Now that it’s on Alpha, can’t do RHD.
Cadillac and Holden are lamenting this today, but it won’t be possible until 2020 or so when A2XX completes.
In the mean time, Holden will see how well it fares with FWD and if RHD models should be captive-imported next decade. And all of us, will be clinging to our older/better GM cars in the mean time.
And the penny finally drops………
The statistics become even worse when you factor in the fact that “current” or “recent” Commodore sales are significantly less than they one were as once loyal customers desert the brand or have already bought their ‘last’ Commodore as many people already have their “keeper”.
My fear is just as local production could not be justified on volume, how many Dealers will disappear after 2017 ?
Not having a crack but I’ve said all along that GM seriously underestimated the intrinsic nature of the Brand.
GM may ‘own’ the trademark but Australians ‘own’ the Brand and the Brand dies when the last real Commodore rolls off the line at Elizabeth and the workers shut the door.
How dare people buy cars GM doesn’t want to build anymore. Sounds like GM is slowly returning to their old ways, in that we are expected to buy whatever uninspired, built to certain company expectation, vehicles.
Even with local production ending, GM knows that there’s no way in hell Aussies will buy a front wheel drive 4 cylinder box called Commodore. Call it a sport sedan all you want, but if the back wheels don’t turn, Aussies won’t buy.
GM has to fire Stefan Jacoby. How can Holden change its iconic RWD Commodore to FWD car??? And why Holden should close its operation in Australia??? Imagine GM closing its operation in USA. Why Holden can’ just let the production line of the Commodore and the ute and the Caprice for the Australian market and for the export???
Jacoby won’t be there for long. Once the Australian market walks away from a company that no longer makes their ‘own’ car someone will have to be the scapegoat – that will be Jacoby – but it will be too late. He’ll just move on to VW or Volvo.
Reminds me of when GM killed the rear wheel drive cars in the late 80’s in US. Monte Carlos and such became front wheel drive wanna-be’s and the El Camino left forever. Sad times.
I think the penny will drop harder when the Series 2 launches, I have my keeper (Redline wagon), but I know quite a few people who have decided to wait for the rumoured bigger engine of the series 2.
I also know a lot of others that despite all the news stories since 2012, are only now starting to realise that there really wont be any more “real” Commodores or Falcons. While they may not be selling in the numbers they once did I really don’t see anything in the proposed cars that will fill the hole in the market. But nature abhors a vacuum someone will step up, I might be wrong, but I don’t expect it to be GM.
It really is quite sad but as the song goes “You don’t know what you’ve got till its gone!”