Mark this one up as an oopsie on behalf of the Clipsal 500 Adelaide. The V8 Supercars motorsports page on Facebook uploaded a silhouetted photo of a mysterious Holden before the brand reportedly called to have it taken down immediately, according to Wheels.
The photo shows the vehicle wearing a Red Bull Racing livery, attached with a statement simply reading, “Are you ready for this?” The image originally linked to a countdown timer on the event’s website, which ended around noon, local time, on Thursday.
Obviously, fingers point to this being our first look at the 2018 Holden Commodore, the brand’s first fully-imported model to wear the iconic nameplate. The 2018 Commodore will ditch its rear-wheel drive layout in favor of front-wheel drive. Ditto for the V8. It will likely be replaced with a twin-turbo V6 to satisfy performance sedan buyers.
The image itself shows a thin, chrome-stripped grille with larger, more bulbous front headlamps. We’ve heard the 2018 Commodore will do its best to differentiate itself from the 2017 Opel Insignia, which the 2018 Commodore will be based upon, but this truly does seem to deviate from any design we’ve seen from Opel’s forthcoming sedan. This will not be your average rebadge job.
The 2017 Opel Insignia will make its debut at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show, while the Holden VF Commodore wraps up local production by fall of 2017.
Comments
Go for it GM–ruin a beautiful Insignia in a half baked effort at unique design.
Mark Adams does beautiful work that can’t be improved upon. Those head lights look 2006. At this point Holden should double up: Malibu vs Fusion and a hobbled, Pintiac-like Commodore vs Charger
I guess this dashes my hopes for a Cadillac CTS or CT6 based SS replacement
Holden are testing a LHD CTS-V in Victoria so it is still possible we are getting a V8 sedan from GM, down side, it will be @$&#ing expensive, close to C63 AMG money.
Looks like an updated Christine to me
If this is really the next Commodore it looks nothing like any of all those spy shots we’ve seen so far of so called Insignia being rebadged as Commodore.
I still believe GM will not make that mistake.