As fans of rear-wheel-drive performance vehicles in Australia and North America the United States count down the time until the VF Commodore or the SS performance sedan are available for purchase, GM’s Australian subsidiary Holden commenced pre-production operations of the freshened VF Commodore the week of April 8th. Meanwhile, some V8 variants of the seven-year-old VE Commodore are still manufactured at the Elizabeth assembly plant in South Australia, and the brand is doing its best to sell down the remaining VE units ahead of the VF’s launch in a month.
Holden will officially unleash the updated VF Commodore, which is expected to be less expensive than the outgoing model with a new lower-end trim level, on the markets in which the brand markets its products in the beginning of June, but as of this writing the GM division has only displayed “show car” versions of the vehicle — which usually represent the actual production-intent car but with different wheels, colors, and/or features and equipment — which might be adjusted for full-scale production.
June can’t come soon enough… can it?
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Comments
Should’a kept Pontiac alive and sold this complete line of Holdens in the US! Throw in the Solstice/Sky, too. A couple Opels and you’ve got a cool line-up.
True, Pontiac should have been kept alive. If Buick can have Opel models, Pontiac could have had Holden models in it’s line up.
I don’t see why they would continue to produce VE. Everyone has seen the new one, why would they buy a ‘brand new’ VE?
Collectors item i guess
I am a long Time Pontiac owner and lover but I am sorry the reality is Pontiac was severely damaged.
Pontiac had only two cars worth keeping and one is already coming back and has issues with the exchange rate. The other was selling is such low numbers it needed a new platform and for a car that would only be selling in numbers south of 20K units per year was a low priority in the real world of auto making.
I still would love to buy a Solstice but the reality is the car needed a lot of investment that GM needed in many other areas like the Impala, CTS, ATS, Trucks, ETC.
Investment in Cadillac is important as they are the most profitable car line they have excluding the trucks.
Pontiac lost it’s identity when it lost its engines. That is what set them apart more than anything. I attend the Pontiac National every years the largest Pontiac show and race in the world. I was shocked to see how many Real Pontiac owners there that really were not as upset with the loss as I was expecting. To them the G6, and other FWD cars were not Pontiac’s for the most part they were fancy Chevys or Toyota with red lighted dashes.
I even had to go to Chevy as Pontiac did not offer the Turbo 2.0 in anything other than the Solstice and I needed to haul more than one passenger. Where was the Performance. I saw one G5 Turbo at Lordstown they built on a whim. They used it to chase parts at the plant and later crushed it.
Keeping Pontiac is a great sediment but just not a realistic option in todays market.
They will keep the VE going to keep product up as new car roll outs are slower in many cases today and often can get held up as GM like to avoid the new car issues as much as they can anymore. Also it may factor in laying off union people and it is cheaper to keep them working till the other car is up and running. Not sure of their deals down there but it has been a factor here in the past.
And who let it get so severely damaged? These people should have been held accountable for this.
You really need to read up on what all went on in the 70’s and 80’s at Pontiac. Pontiac almost died in the early 80’s as was saved with the Fiero and Grand Am. The Fiero brought many people in to the show rooms and helped many find the Grand Am. Grand Am sales alone kept them going as Olds Declined.
GM never really gave Pontiac what they needed. Pontiac too often has people in charge that did not understand what made Pontiac Pontiac.
The Decline started when they lost the Pontiac V8. The Engineers tried to do what they could with what they were given and did well but in the eyes of the traditional Pontiac buyer from the past the new cars with Chevy and Buick Engines were just not Pontiac’s
Then as time went on and they killed the F body and left Pontiac with no RWD performance cars this was the final nail. Lutz came in and could not believe they did this. He brought the GTO in as a hail mary as he did not have the time and or money to do it. The car was brought in on a shoe string. Same for the Solstice as it is a miracle l it was even approved. Many short comings were mainly due to the lack of money.
I had Scott Settlmire F bodfather tell me how little money was spent on the GTO as they had nothing left to spend as it just was not in the budget.
The things they did were amazing that it came to market as it was much more than just moving the wheel to the left side. The cost of the fuel tank test alone!
There were two dozen reasons for Pontiac dying as it happened over 3 decades.
Today the market is so competitive that is difficult for even a company as large as GM to offer 5 different models of the same car properly. You scale it back and do 2-3 properly.
I dearly morn the loss of Pontiac but I also know the business end well enough to know that If GM has not pared down their models there would be no GM today.
Lets face it out of a few fans there really was little out cry that the division was gone even with many hard core fans. Same for Mercury and Plymouth.
The names are there and if the time and market are ever right GM could do a special edition some day in a limited performance division.
But to continue on as they were with the G3-G4-G6 and the Vibe
You hit the nail right on the head here. I got to thinking about this and seeing things from my youth on up, it is a long sad story isn’t it.
wouldn’t it make sense for buick to have this as a grand national. as pontiac had the G8 and the gto, and chev has the impala ??
The SS as it is doesn’t fit Buick’s range. It’s not luxurious enough and Buick doesn’t pitch hi-po cars; that market is let to Cadillac.
As for the Impala, it and the SS aren’t even on the same page. Both are two different cars aimed at 2 different kinds of buyers; one who cares about HP and one who doesn’t.
Robert, it should be a Buick, but not a Grand National that was a 2dr & a V6.
First thing to do is forget about the so called Grand National being a throw back Muscle car. It may be black and may or may not be a coupe. It for sure will be a Turbo V6.
I wish Buick would drop the name as I feel many will get the wrong idea. It will be a great car but in a much more refined way. Think Lexus like performance coupe or sedan not Old A body.
If Pontiac was to come back, you could sell Holdens in the US with these badges:
Chevrolet: Holden VF Commodore SS-V as Chevrolet SS
Chevrolet: Holden VF Ute SS-V as Chevrolet El Camino
Buick: Holden VF Commodore Calais & Calais-V as Buick Grand National
Buick: Holden WN Caprice as Buick Park Avenue
Pontiac: HSV Gen-F as Pontiac G8
Pontiac: HSV Maloo as Pontiac Sport Truck
Cadillac: HSV WN Grange
GMC: Holden VF Ute Evoke
Think of it this way, America gets our awesome cars and Holden gets an export program that can keep Australian production alive!
The problem with your idea is redundancy and overlap.
There is so much product listed, and too small a price margin to keep them from stepping on each other’s toes. It also over saturates a segment that (as a majority) has little interest in HP, and those that do are even smaller in number.