With the 2011 British Touring Car racing season firmly in the books, the official Chevrolet Cruze BTCC racing team will be going on an indefinite hiatus beginning this year. According to Autosport, Chevy pulled out to concentrate on its World Touring Car Championship team — which spent the last two seasons completely decimating the competition.
The Chevy BTCC team experienced a bit of success during the 2011 season, led by driver and Fifth Gear co-host Jason Plato, who found himself finishing third in the driver’s standings while Team Chevy finished second in manufacturer’s points last season. In 2010, Plato and company powered to a pair of BTCC titles. However, General Motors itself will still be represented in the British racing series by Vauxhall.
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I’m still amazed that the Brits get a brand (Vauxhall) all to themselves… now I come to find out they have a racing circuit all to themselves as well! Good riddance, Chevy.
I never could understand either how the powers-that-be justify the Vauxhall brand only for the UK, yet a worldwide brand like Daewoo got converted to Chevrolet. This stinks of politics. World politics. The name alone irritates me, bringing back memories of some 60s and 70s era vehicles that were ugly as sin and smelt of overheated vinyl and grease. Ewwww. Opel, please…
Firstly, Vauxhall isn’t a rebadged Chevrolet brand to begin with. Daewoo’s were rebadged as Chevy’s worldwide and as Holden’s in Australia. Vauxhall is Opel in the UK. Secondly, it’s all about marketing. The Vauxhall brand is well known and beloved in the UK and GM knows it will sell more Opel’s if they were to have to take on this beloved and trusted brand. Same reason why Daewoo’s/Chevy’s are sold as Holden’s in Australia. It would make sense to rebrand Vauxhall as Opel but GM would lose some market share as a result. Of course car enthusiasts like us know the difference but a lot of everyday consumers with no interest in the automotive industry wouldn’t see Opel as the same brand. Alex wrote an article suggesting Chevy replace Holden in Australia, Holden is essentially Chevy but with a few Australian made cars in its line up as well. The feedback/comments in regards to the article show the advantage of keeping the Holden brand instead of replacing it with Chevy. Chevy also doesn’t have a good reputation here.
Holden4Life If I may interject here:
1. Daewoo is now done and over with… so there’s that.
2. ” It would make sense to rebrand Vauxhall as Opel but GM would lose some market share as a result.”
I agree that Vauxhall should go, but I disagree that with the overall assessment that market share will be lost… I also challenge the idea that replacing Holden with Chevy in Oceania would have a similar negative impact.
Primarily, the basis for my theory is simple, and it all revolves around properly transitioning a brand. Many seem to think that one day, UK consumers would awake to no more Vauxhall… with Opel entirely in its place (or with Chevy entirely in the place of Holden). This would most definitely result in the scenario you’re describing.
But done properly and over time (the key), brand transitions have been known to *boost* sales and market share, not diminish them. A prime example is Cisco’s migration from the Linksys brand name of consumer networking gear to Cisco. First it was Linksys, then it was Linksys by Cisco (for a while), and now it is exclusively Cisco.
Something similar could be done with any of the brands we’re discussing above… and perhaps done even better and smoother. Who knows, perhaps a little “German” in the Vauxhall name (Vauxhall by Opel, or something to that effect) will have a positive impact on mindshare/perception. The same goes for Chevy.
3. On a sidenote, I’m beginning to believe that the Holden name isn’t doing GM any favors in Australia. The brand has been on a steady decline for the last several years (on a year-over-year basis) in market share.
So when I hear that such things as “Chevy doesn’t have a good reputation in Australia”, my immediate question is: “Does Holden?”. Based on recent sales results alone, it does not.
I feel we and many others have had this argument before… lol.
Most of what you’ve said I have responded to previously. As for Holden’s reputation, Holden has a strong positive reputation here. Yes many criticize Holden at every chance they get but half the time it’s just Ford fans sledging their arch rival. The criticisms are made not to hurt Holden’s reputation but to ensure our brand and our car company do want we want them to do.
Chevrolet’s poor reputation is mostly stereotypical. Australian’s see American made cars as “cheap, gas guzzling and over sized pieces of crap”. Hummer and full sized pick-ups have proven this over the years. There is the real issue that American cars aren’t good on Aussie roads. Our roads haven’t been maintained properly throughout country and as a result only cars that have been tested and engineered here can truly cope with our roads.
Changing Holden to Chevy over time won’t work either. Holden is older than Chevrolet and has a cultural tie to our nation and Australians. It would be like replacing Chevrolet in North America with Great Wall Motors (equivalent reputation… maybe a little exaggerated). You couldn’t do it over a long time because we would always resist the change.
If you want to see why Holden should never be replaced, go to a V8 Supercars Bathurst 1000 event and sit in the Holden fans only areas. Just being in Australia alone you see a Holden product every 5 seconds and I reckon there is a 1 in 3 chance it is Australian made. Going to Bathurst and promoting the idea that Chevy should replace Holden will have you murdered on the spot. Remember the comments from Aussies on your original article?
http://news.drive.com.au/drive/motor-news/change-holden-to-chevrolet-says-us-website-20110503-1e69h.html#poll
Here are some quotes from an article (link above) reporting about your post:
Holden spokeswoman Emily Perry has branded the name-change suggestion as ‘‘absurd’’.
‘‘Holden is, and is recognised by GM, as one of the, if not the, strongest brand in the GM stable,’’ Perry says.
‘‘Mike Simcoe [GM’s director of design] was in my office last week saying the same thing: as a brand it’s better bought, better understood, more passionate than any other,’’ she says. ‘‘Holden is not going anywhere.’’
In another article, Mike Devereux even stated that GM would never and should never change Holden. Rival (and global) car companies even market their vehicles with different names and brands here because they know that it will sell better. Nissan called the Tiida, the Pulsar in Australia and became a sales hit. They then replaced the Pulsar name with Tiida and sales plummeted. With new model that has just launched, the Pulsar name plate is back and is already a sales success. The scion tc is sold as a Toyota here because Scion is unknown and Toyota has a very positive reputation here. GM sell global Chevy’s under the Holden brand becuase the brand is well known and well loved. The cars may not be class leaders (New Malibu is inferior to new Mondeo (Fusion), new Mazda 6 and others and it uses as much fuel as the new VF commodore uses.
What would be better for GM is to let Holden build their own cars in each category, like Opel. Chevy can enter Australia and sell their global cars (most of which are currently sold as Holdens) alongside the all Aussie Holdens… of course that will cost a lot and Chevy wouldn’t sell any cars.