It’s safe to say Australia as an ongoing prognosis of Mustang fever. Ford managed to outsell Holden considerably during the month of May down under, and the sports car certainly helped its case.
Car Advice reports the Mustang was Ford’s number two vehicle behind the hot-selling Ford Ranger pickup. 1,351 Ford Mustangs were purchased during the month—a figure that outsold mainstream vehicles like the Honda Civic and Subaru Forester. Most of the sales reportedly came from previously filed orders. The Mustang has been on sale in Oz for 18 months.
Holden currently does not have a direct rival to the Ford Mustang, but the 2017 VF Commodore soldiers on as the only Australian-built sport sedan. The Ford Falcon was defanged last year. Holden sold 1,841 Commodores, down 18 percent year-to-date.
To show Ford’s incredible lead in the pickup market, just look at the numbers. The Ranger found 4,069 new homes last month; the Holden Colorado found just 1,924 driveways.
In total, Ford sold 7,617 new vehicles compared to Holden’s 6,917. In turn, Ford sales are up 15.7 percent, while Holden sales shrunk 6.6 percent.
Holden will have a few more tough months ahead as it gears up to cease production of the VF Commodore. This coming October, the final Australian-built sedan will leave the brand’s Adelaide plant. On the horizon, though, are plenty of new Holden vehicles imported from Opel and Chevrolet. Oh, and a rear-wheel drive sports car will join the lineup in 2020 as well.
Comments
Nothing should be clearer to the parent General Motors and also its Australian based off spring, Australia’s General Motors Holden’s.
Put simply its time to kill off the Holden brand, the brand “Holden” has run its race, a race that only began in November 1948 with the release of the 1948 Holden 48-215 Holden sedan.
And even then the Holden brand did not sell exclusively until 1970! From 1948 until 1970 General Motors Holden’s also sold Pontiac, Chevrolet, Vauxhall, Bedford as well as Holden in Australia. Holden was the low end cheap economy product. It was just another GMH product along with the more expensive Pontiac, Chevrolet, Vauxhall and Bedford.
So, the reality is that, its been a very short 47 years that Holden has existed as a brand on its own and progressively over this 47 years has been loosing its market position as a brand to global International brands.
The media often report the Holden brand as a being 100 plus years old! Nothing could be further from the truth. In early times the Holden body works even built car bodys for Chrysler and other car companies. Historically, Holden is not exclusively a GM brand.
Ford however sell an international brand and this is where GM needs to be sooner, rather than later. The genunie 100 PLUS year old CHEVROLET brand is the key to GMs future in Australia and without question Chevrolets will fill present day GMH dealership showrooms within the next year or two.
However, these Chevrolets should NOT wear Holden badges, that would be a big mistake and if that happens then the GMH dealer spare parts counters should carry large stocks of Chevrolet badges for the customers to fit to there Holden badged Chevrolets.
The only question I would see is which luxury brand should GM sell down under? In my view Cadillac is the obvious choice.
So the future of GMs presence in Australia must be centred around Chevrolet and Cadillac. In fact GMs global structure should be around these two book end brands.
An option might be to slowly remove the Holden brand over a 10 year period but I see little point in doing this.
It’s probably a good idea to kill off Holden. It’s a failed American business model that reflects a time when the US auto industry was king. Not anymore and GM should concentrate on its own business model with future auto industry business disrupters on the prowl and ready to pounce. Might not need to shop GM in Oz. It might not exist in 10 years!
Not sure where you are getting 47 years? Cheap product that was less than the other GM offerings. I think you may have your facts wrong.
Pablo,
You make some quite valid points and while I am not in complete agreement I can appreciate what you are saying.
My statement that Holden is really only 47 years old and for the most of its short history was only an entry level cheap car is well and truely supported by the following historical facts:
1/ Holden when first established had absolutely nothing to do with General Motors Holden. Holden built horse buggies and later car bodies but for numerous car companies including but not limited to Chrysler, Dodge, Plymouth, Studebaker, Ford and also many European brands.
2/ 1930s
In the early 1930s General Motors took over the Holden car body company and from that point forward Holden increasingly worked towards only building GM car bodies. It was at this point that the name General Motors Holden’s came into existence.
However please note that General Motors Holden’s did NOT at this point sell a ‘Holden’ they did however sell Cadillac, La Salle, Buick, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Chevrolet, Vauxhall and Bedford.
3/ November 1948
The first ‘Holden’ is released. Based not on a Chevrolet, but on a German Opel design its model number was 48-215. Please note until at least 1969 General Motors Holden continued with Australian assembly of Pontiac, Chevrolet and Vauxhall passenger cars and Bedford trucks as well as the then cheaper Holden.
The dealerships were called GMH dealers (not Holden dealers). GMH dealers offered the following vehicles from 1949 until early in 1970:
PONTIAC & CHEVROLET
To the high end luxury car market.
VAUXHALL VELOX & CRESTA
To upper middle income market
HOLDEN
To the mass market (entry level).
4/ Until the introductioin in 1962 ‘EJ’ series and the first so called ‘luxury’ Holden ‘Premier’ which came equiped with white Wall tyres, chrome wheel trims, heater / demister, genuine leather upholstery, wool carpet and a white steering wheel! Holdens came with little if any equipment. They had basic cold rubber covered floors, vinyl upholstery. No heater, radio or much else. They provided cheap transportation for post Second World War working class Australians.
Company C.E.O.s and other wealthy Australians of the time purchased a new Chevrolet Belair or Impala. Pontiac Laurentian or Parisienne. Upper middle class Australians drove a Vauxhall Cresta. NOTE these cars were sold by GMH dealers (No Holden only dealers existed).
In recording their history General Motors Holden’s always (for reasons I don’t understand) do their best to forget they ever assermbled Chevrolet and Pontiac as their premium luxury cars from 1949 until 1969 and this gives the wrong impression that Holden was the only brand they had involvement with.
General Motors Holden’s stopped Australian assembly of Chevrolet and Pontiac passenger cars by late 1969. At this point the former General Motors Holden’s dealerships increasingly became known as simply Holden dealerships.
The rest is well known history but of course from 1970 the Holden range expanded to offer luxury models, performance models and entry level cars.
So, Holden as a single manufacturer really did not start until 1970 (just 47 years ago!). Prior to 1970 the Holden brand sold along side Pontiac, Chevrolet, Vauxhall and Bedford brands all by GENERAL MOTORS HOILDEN’S PTY LTD.
Maybe history will repeat itself but sadly General Motors Holden’s chooses to record history not as it occurred but as it suits them.
You’re full of it !!
Not true at all Carl and where in the history books have you found that the 48-215 was based off an Opel design? That is utter rubbish as the basis of the car after many Australian and American design concepts came from a post-war Chevrolet design. Perhaps you are getting confused with the original VB Commodore that had plenty of Opel influences. One thing I will agree with though is that Holden is in huge trouble. Moreso than Ford. Stephan Jacoby would not want to meet me in a dark alley, he is after all the non GM person who hailed from that morally responsible auto group VW that killed 70 years of an iconic Australian legend being manufactured.
Zero Five,
Your view that the first Holden 48-215 (or as many call it the ‘FX’ Holden) was based on proposed small pre Second World War Chevrolet design concept is a commonly held view that is incorrect and has no basis what so ever.
To understand why the above view is so commonly held, you have put your self in Australia during the 1947 to 1949 period. The Second World War had only been over for a couple of years and the Germans in particular were very much seen as the bad guys.
So much so, that anything German was avoided by the public who increasingly were seeing the outcome of that terrible world war, particularly the terrible and shocking treatment by the Germans of the Jewish people.
Today people see German products such BMW, Mercedes Bernz and VW as desirable but this was not the case immediately following the Second World War. In fact BMW and many other German companies used considerable Jewish slave labour during World War Two. Not something these companies probably want to recall today.
Because the above situation and……….
1/ The high regard Australians had for the Chevrolet brand which like the T model Ford had during the 1920s and 1930s proved to be ideally suited to the then poor quality Australian roads.
2/ The fact that the United States had effectively protected Australia against the advancing Japanese. So anything American was considered superiour.
General Motors promoted the first Holden as a if its design was American. To further promote this, the Holden 48-215 front grille was design with considerable Buick influence.
However the 48-215 is based on pre Second World War German Opel design. General Motors did not have any vehicles built on a mono construction until they released the revolutionary simply brilliant Chevrolet Corvair in 1960! A good 12 years after the first Holden. Opel on the other had being doing considerable work on mono constructed vehicles prior to Word War Two.
Certainly the final design of the Holden 48-215 took place in Detroit, but the basic engineering and concept came from Opel. The problem for General Motors was that trying to introduce a completely new brand of Holden in Australia just after a major war that was designed by the Germans. This would not have go down well, so the line was pushed that it was based on a small Chevrolet.
Take a look at early pre and post Second World War Opel design and you will the clearly see the direct relationship with the first Holden 48-215 design. Apart from the front grille nothing on the 48-215 is of USA thinking.
In 1947 there was much talk about what the first Australian should be named. Numerous ideas came forward but history records that Holden was used. A Holden car did not exist prior to November 1948 and it introduction was to provide a very cheap basic car for the then Australian working class buyer who could not afford the much more expensive luxury Chevrolets or Pontiac vehicles. Many of these buyers had faced the Germans in battle and lost close friends.
Believe me the Holden 48-215 body design has much more Opel influence that Chevrolet.
Carl, with all due respect can you please name me a referenced piece of literature that definitively says that the original Holden was an Opel design. About the only place I have seen it referenced that Opel were working on a similar car is in ‘Heart of the Lion’ however it is a passing reference and in no way shape or form does it say definitively that the concept for Holden’s car was Opel’s work. Plenty of reference photos I’ve observed however do show side profiles of post-war Chevrolet styling prototypes that are nearly an exact match for the side profile of a 48-215 apart from a subtle difference in the crease line that runs from the front fender and along the door belt. No Opel Kapitan from that era looks anything like a 48-215 or FJ so if Opel did all of that work why are there no models that bear any recognisable resemblance? One would think that despite Germany suffering in their post-war recovery that at some point in time they would have released a version of it had they completed work on it. The 48-215s were too bullet proof to be a completely European design and if you look at what happened to the original V-Car prototype in the mid-seventies when tested on Australian roads for the first time it is blatantly obvious that no European engineer could ever imagine what our roads could do to a car locally. The 48-215 was the right car for the right time, bigger than the offering of most European marques but more compact than the American cars of the time but with a similar bulletproof powertrain. They are legendary for a reason. And as an aside what about the Holden Specials, they predate Premier as the top line Holden by at least 9 years. They still may have been basic transportation but you cannot dispute the fact that the original Holdens revolutionised personal transportation in this country.
Replacing Holden with Chevrolet will not work whatsoever in my mind. It is a brand that only Baby Boomers truly understand in the Australian environment and the young generation who replace the Lions on their Commodores with Bowties have only worsened the perception of both brands in this country. Most younger non-car people associate Chevrolet negatively with being the badge adorned on many a ‘bogan mobile’ which is disappointing given the rich history of the marque in this country up until the early 70s. Nothing annoys me more than seeing a Chev emblem on a Commodore as it really lessens the appeal of both brands. I love Holden, however I love all GM brands, and own myself not only a couple of Holdens but also a Chevrolet which is the pride of my small collection of cars. Nonetheless so much irreparable damage has already been done to the GM brand in Australia with the cessation of manufacturing it is important that a constant remains and if that means keeping the Holden brand alive then so be it. GM really need to make every new model a hit though and that is where the problems lay for mine. So many of these new models that have been released in GM’s latest Australian product renaissance are sub-par and expensive compared to the opposition and despite keeping a design studio locally GM are not fair dinkum enough about keeping a consistent Holden styling language with all the varieties of models they are importing. My greatest fear is that GM will pull out of this country all together, once a thought that seemed all but impossible but in light of recent undertakings by GMIO with the sale of Opel and Vauxhall and pulling out of India and South Africa nothing surprises me now. I sincerely hope I am wrong but GM fans in this country are in for the toughest of times ahead. Not as tough as the Holden dealer network will have it though. They must be absolutely panicking by now.
Yes, its about time Holden was either retired, or sold as a concern to new owners to take it on new ventures. As for as Holden only being 47 year old……Yeah NO. The company started in the 1860s, yes they have been in the transport industry since the beginning. People tend to forget that “Car companies” usually started as something else. Chevrolet was around before William Durant bought them, as was Cadillac, Buick etc prior to GM ever existing. Dodge Bros. were bicycle manufacturers, Yamaha made musical instruments, BMW made aircraft engines, Honda started making piston Rings. Holden needs to continue outside of the GM world. As far as GMs future in Australia, that would lie in there future products, and probably rely on the Chev brand and Cadillac brand, and a truck brand. Holden and GM are now tainted, and need a Divorce….Opel as we know it is no longer GM, so thats off the table now. GM, You’s in a Heep a Trouble, boy!!!
Zero Five,
This subject could cover another 100 pages long and I expect we would still be in disagreement with each other, so as much as the issue interests me considerably and has been a life long interest, I am going to move on from it.
Sadly, however I agree with your concern for the future of General Motors. It’s a company that once made the worlds best Automotive air conditioning. GMs ‘A6′ compressors have been used in Rolls Royce, Fords and even in light aircraft simply because they were and still are the best. General Motors of the future is unlikely to repeat any of this. How the mighty fall.
The Chevrolet small block V8 engine set the engineering bench mark for pressent day V8 engines and GM Engineer Ed Cole should long be remebered for design work on this and the air cooled flat 6 cylinder Chevrolet Corvair engine that predated Porsche 6 cylinder engines by 10 years not to mention turbo charging of these engines which Chevrolet also did years before Porsche had a go.
Every HSV Holden owes its very existence to Ed Cole for the work he and his team of talented engineers did in the early 1950s. Not many appreciate this. GM-Holden and HSV may well have done some great development work, but if not for Ed Coles earlier work GM-Holden or HSV would not have existed.
With the ’49-215’ design we will never know in detail what exactly influernced the designed of this first GM design to be badged a Holden. Many of the points you make have merit. Nevertheless viewing what Australia was like, or the whole world for that matter during the immediate post Second World War years is difficult enough for the few that lived through it and are still with us today. It’s next to impossible for those of us who were not even born!
With respect to the early development work on what became the 48-215 started in 1946.
Engine:
The 6 cylinder engine (grey motor) was essentially a scaled down version of the 1929 release 6 cylinder Chevrolet engine. It was dated the day it came out, but it did serve the purpose of keeping development costs down. No question there. General Motors then kept that very dated engine as you will already know for far to long. For 14 years in fact.
Body styling:
No argument that the 48-215 was heavily influenced by American pre Second World War design. It was certainly NOT post war design as by this time design was moving towards curved windscreens, dual head lamps and lower overall shapes. The upright design of the early Holdens comes from the pre Second World War thinking.
Mono construction:
When General Motors developed the 48-215 they had not built a mono constructed car. In fact General Motors factories right across the United States were set up for the tried and proven, and absolutely superiour ‘body on frame’ method of constructing cars.
General Motors German Opel division however had built mono constructed cars before the Second World War, and accordingly were in the best position to provide the basic design platform on which the 48-215 could be developed.
The 48-215 and in fact all early Holdens until the much improved ‘red motor’ in 1963 were regardless of people today might want to believe, not exceptionally strong vehicles. They burnt and dripped oil early in there lives, but were cheap to maintain and provided the masses with affordable if not very remarkable cars.
General Motors – Holdens were only able to sell these dated cars because of the heavily import tarifs that effectively created a market outside of the rest of the world. History shows us, that once these tarifs were removed manufacturing an Australian made car very quickly became uneconomic.
I appreciate also that the Holden prior to release of the Premier in the 1962 ‘EJ’ series could be purchased in either standard or special trim, but Special trim provided little beyond some additional bright trim. It took General Motors – Holdens another 19 years and many model updates before even a heater / demister unit became standard equipment in Holden Specials.
Holden Specials still had simple vinyl seats, riubber floor mats and nothing much else, so your suggestion that these ‘Special’ Holdens represented some level of luxury is difficult to follow.
I respect your views, and don’t for a second suggest that mine are 100% right but would caution you against believing how people choose to remember history rather than how it really played out.
I strongly hold the view that for General Motors to survive at all in Australia it must NOT kill off Holden slowly and must KILL the brand name QUICKLY by introducing the global brands of Chevrolet and Cadillac. Holden as a brand is no longer relevant to Australia and the falling sales figures prove this very point. It’s not 1962 anymore even Holden thinks it is.
Chevrolet provides the badge for sporting cars such as, but not limited to the Chevrolet Corvette and Chevrolet Comaro. Cadillac already has the vehicles which could provide a suitable replacement to Holden Caprice.
Trying to convince the buying public that the cars on the showroom floor are Holdens because they wear a Holden badge will become a marketing failure.
Jolly Roger
As a model of a car Holden is only 47 years old (refer my earlier notes)
General Motors – Holdens is the company that produced and sold the Holden but it did not exclusively sell Holden for most of its history and did not sell any Holdens prior to 1949. Until 1970 General Motors Holdens also sold Pontiac, Chevrolet, Vauxhall, and Beford. Holden was simply its entry level cheap car.
From 1970 onwards, the company effectively started its downsizing as from 1970 only Holdens were produced for the Australian market and thats 47 years ago!
Prior to 1970, your local General Motors Holdens dealership could sell you a Pontiac, Chevrolet, Vauxhall, Bedford and the basic Holden.
A lot of cross overs of terminology in this thread and in my mind confusion. “Holden” as branding has had many uses.
To a long term Holden person the Holden car line ceased production in 1984 at the end of the WB.
The subsidiary company of GM as others have pointed out has had a few rebranding’s and restructures over the years and is now called just Holden, but has always had Holden included in its name. It does give the brand its history.
They were never just assemblers of kits and produced many unique body styles branded with “Chevrolet” and many other well known carlines. By the war most other non GM car lines had ceased as the company was nearly completely owned by GM but they were always badged there cars as Holden bodies with the Holden lion (since 1928). Their history of Australian car building will cease in October.
But I don’t think it’s the Holden company name that needs to change (it might need to at some point) but people have been buying a variety of imported cars “from Holden”, “by Holden” or whatever for many years, many of them lemons but some good cars in the mix. I have no idea who thought many of them were a good idea but its not my problem.
My own opinion is that just like they did when the “Commodore” replaced the “Holden” as the company’s volume seller, I think the new car line needs to start afresh. I call mine a VF Commodore SS not a Holden, I do call my other car a HQ Holden SS. I know they both were built and sold by Holden / GMH.
I think the new car needs a fresh brand of its own, the new “X” from Holden, with all the new features will give people an idea that its is a completely new car from a company with a long Australian history, with a cachet all its own. It is enough of a break from the Insignia that totally failed here two years ago that I would avoid that name too. Give the market a new model with its own name.