Overnight in the United States, Holden announced Mark Bernhard would depart the company and appointed its seventh managing director since 2003. The revolving door of leadership is considered one reason why Holden has floundered in recent years.
But, we’re here to ask what you believe Holden needs to succeed in a world where it doesn’t build cars.
Perhaps it’s exclusive product. Holden rose to prominence as a car built for Australians. Of course, this included local production. We’ll likely never see General Motors assemble a Holden car in Australia ever again, but unique product exclusive to the market could help the brand regain some of its luster. These days, Holden is a national importer and sources vehicles from GM globally.
But, a car for Australia isn’t a sound financial investment when costs must be shared around the globe. So, maybe more attention to the imported cars is the answer. The 2018 Opel Insignia is a fine car. We’ve driven it as our 2018 Buick Regal. In Australia, it serves as a (sort of underwhelming) successor to the VF Commodore.
If anything, GM could have doctored up a unique design. At a minimum, we believe the car should boast a separate face from its global counterparts.
Is it a performance car? Holden is well known in enthusiast circles for burly V8 engines and rear-wheel drive sedans. But we doubt Holden would ever gain a mainstream model based on, let’s say, the Cadillac CTS. Cadillac could return to Australia one day, though. Holden also renewed its partnership with Holden Special Vehicles to begin selling the Chevrolet Camaro SS and Silverado HD.
But those cars wear bowties, not lions. For better or worse, Holden built a reputation on its Australian roots. It’s hard to sell that story when the portfolio features simple badge swaps. Talk to us down below.
Comments
Get rid of that awful 1996 Ford Taurus that Holden is calling the “Commodore”. I said it would sell as well as that Taurus did in Oz, and it is.
Get the new Caddy/Camaro Alpha platform installed in Lansing, and ship the old Caddy ATS tooling to Elizabeth. Gear up the 4-door as the new “Torana” and the 2-door as the new “A9X” and stick an LT1 in it.
Take the 2-door and race it, rally it, Targa Tassie it, GT4 it, round-Australia-trial it. Sell the 6 for around AU$50k, the LT1 for AU$80k.
Make the Bolt something a little more like the ford transit connect and import that from America until they start making it in Thailand.
Make those Ellinghaus-style Holden Storefronts in Syd/Melb/Bris/Ad/Perth with pop-up fashion and style vendors. An ATS-style car would sell much better with Sydney fashion types than NY fashion types. “Real Housewife” chic is dominant in Australia where it’s called “Bogan Fashion”, Holden has a lock on that market.
Use Apple-style price-symmetry across Australia, and stop the stupid customer-vs-dealer buying-wars. Aussies see that as “incredibly American” and very negatively. Big Aussie car dealers are extreme conservatives who often rely on old product ideas for way too long – just look at the death of the Falcodore that took so long and lost Australia any chance to modernize its car-manufacture design to change with the people it was supposed to serve.
Sponsor an Aussie-specific formula-e style sedan race series that features young Aussie engineering talent similar to the Camaro challenge done by GM in American Universities.
From what I’ve read. Holden is having a similar issue to what Buick is experiencing in the US, albeit on a much larger scale. Holden has previously had issues with manufacturing costs in Australia, in a move to avoid shipping and tariff costs. For me personally, Buick as it stands right now, does not excite me at all, as the image of the elderly, and retired come to mind. Holden seems to have the same issue in Australia. Give Holden a newly redesigned logo, and maybe a new name. Change the customer care of the dealership sector, and provide confidence and peace of mind warranties. Holden needs to assure the Australian market that it’s not there for the short term, but it’s there long term, and is willing to make investments in the communities in which its dealerships are located.
Unfortunately Holden became the whipping boy when manufacture left Australia, because it was seen as local whereas other brands were foreigners. Not fact but certainly perception.
So why not sell back a portion of Holden stock to Australians and create a joint venture similar to GM’s China operations? The new Holden would not be forced to source all its product from GM, but maintain an agreed percentage. Australians could then have a say in Holden’s future and rebuild the domestic pride that the company was built on.
Holden should become the Mopar of GM and then convert the car division in to Chevrolets. Import all Chevy cars and trucks to Australia and NZ to finally create a global Chevrolet brand.
HA!
If you think the butthurt is bad now, try replacing Holden with Chevrolet.
It seems that Aussies and Americans both have lots in common, they both talk a good game about buying “domestic” but they don’t put their money where their mouths are……so go buy a Hyundai or a KIA or whatever you were already buying while Holden was still making cars in the Australia and spare me the phony butthurt.
Though I could see Chevrolet as a brand in Australia, selling only the specialty cars like the Camaro, Corvette, full size trucks and SUV’s and if there ever is a RWD Impala replacement , it could also go there. Chevrolet does have history in Australia, they were sold there through 1969-1970 or so.
Leaving Holden for the bread and butter regular cars, so Chevy won’t have to bother with the Cruze, Spark, Malibu, Equinox, etc etc.
Enough time for the massive butthurt crybaby BS to end………
The government killed Holden. There is not one manufacturer in the world that does not have government support. Cars today are high technology and the industry promotes those skills with research and training. If we want to maintain a high standard of living we need clever industries and highly skilled people.
Show true Australian history some respect and kill it. Holden doesn’t exist anymore. It’s not real. There in no ‘Holden Motor Company’, no Holden Manufacturing, no Holden anything outside of a badge. It’s not an authentic company or even division at all now. It’s fake marketing…. Pie in the sky badge engineering. On par with Chevy sticking their bowtie on a Nissan. Just because you stick a badge on something doesn’t make it authentic. It’s a forgery… A Buick with a Holden badge is still a Buick.
Really, it suffers from the same thing that’s plagued all of GM since the late 70’s/early 80’s when they killed off their individual companies/motor divisions and just became One GM. Nothing was authentic anymore. Just a bunch of different badges on essentially the same ‘One GM’ product. GM has tried to fix that in recent history to help differentiate their remaining nameplates they market by changing up the sheet metal and interiors more. The Holden nameplate won’t bring in enough money to justify sheet metal changes though. So it’s back to the 80’s/90’s playbook.
Unfortunately I think a metaphor for Holden is the Titanic. Once too big to fail, but now the unsinkable ship is sinking. We all said this when GM and our government pulled the plug but no one listened. Very sad indeed.
Scrap Holden and import Chevy stock for Australia and New Zealand. Holden should have imported the Chevy Malibu and killed the Commodore name. It was great in the past but it is now in the past. Get manufacturing all Chevys to be left and right handed instead of having to do expensive conversions, makes this product unattainable with the high cost of converting. Chevrolet is the best car brand in the world. Share the love to Australia and New Zealand.
I reapeat this imporant sentence: ” Get manufacturing all Chevys to be left and right handed instead of having to do expensive conversions,” — everywhere outside of the USA they know how to do it, from Korea to Brazil.
But once the USA is walled in all around in the South and the North, like West Berlin from 1961 to 1989, then there will be no more need to try and look over the walls. It is so cosy in a narrow enclosure.
GMH had a plan : they were going to import vehicles from Europe with a few others from Korea and Thailand.
Then the head office pulls the plug in Europe, India and Africa, drops all RHD production in Korea and leaves the Thai business floundering.
The “last great hope” the Equinox arrives 6 months late, after GMH had tolds dealers to slag off the Captiva, leaving them with nothing to ***ing sell, and then only a few months later they announce production of a LHD only vehicle at the sole and only source of this vehicle.
Why would anyone spend a large proportion of the year’s income on a vehicle from a company that is showing every sign of doing a runner ?
Doesn’t matter how well Holden was at designing and manufacturing and now at marketing, they were and still are let down by the dealerships. The multiple NSW dealerships I’ve had to deal with have atrocious service departments. They seem to be forever staffed by people who are on their first day at the job (but couldn’t care less).
On the product front, more U.S. designed and U.S. built models would help IMO.
P.S. Save yourself from a whole lot of heartache and disappointment by avoiding Col Crawford Holden at Brookvale.
See what I mean about Aussie Holden dealers?
Dealers are a massive problem for manufacturers. They weigh down progress, suck up R&D budgets for personal holidays, and continuously bloviate to customers that they “know what the customer needs and it’s not what the customer thinks they need, they need what I tell them they need”. Until the manufacturer goes bust supplying dealers with crap the customers don’t want.
Idiotic classic American greed, all GM cares about is top dollar profit margins. GM concentrates on China for cars, US for trucks and everyone else gets scraps.
GM have a large underutilized factory in Ontario that can crank-out a new rwd Holden range as well as rwd cars for Chevy/Buick to turn out but the ROI IMO may not meet GMs expectations, hell these guys won’t even make the Regal/Commodore in the US despite being a Malibu twin.
holden should have ended.All their dealers should be chev dealers .The reason people are buying other bands is they are better and dont have engine sensor issues ,i love older holdens but this last twenty years has put people off
here’s an idea, manual V6 and V8 sedans and utes
it’s not rocket science.
GM doesn’t owe any country anything. However, because of GM’s corporate mission under Alfred P Sloan to build cars in many countries to a better standard than was available previously in those countries (for example Australia where we suffered under BMC non-mobility) and therefore to build positive relations between countries, Australia benefitted from GM for nearly 7 decades. We had reliable mobility, thousands of jobs, an engineering and racing culture, and plenty of fun. Right up until Aussie PM Toxic Tony wanted to beat a woman (Gillard) and threw the manufacturer out with the woman. Australia pushed GM out, not the other way around.
Seriously, thanks GM from this Aussie who loved your work and benefitted from the people who your paid.
Mate I’m one of the lucky few that still works for Holden at their spare parts Factory and I can tell you that one of the big boss ladies sat us all down earlier this year, well before the ZB came out and said holden is expecting to loose minimum 770 million dollars this year. But holden, with the backing of GM are committed to the Future. Holden closed 114 dealership this year because teconomically unviable. But yet they invest 100 something million to change/upgrade their existing dealerships and also GM have committed to put their on star system into all Holdens by 2020. Call me crazy but I don’t think GM or Holden are willing to throw away that much money on something if they don’t have future plans. A lot of people don’t know this but Holden has already committed to releasing a V8 version of the ZB, and I’m fairly certain that Holden will be switching to the Cadillac and Buick platform and we will see the quad turbo V8 monster. The current 3.6 litre in the zb is the same engine that’s in the caddilac ats-v twin turbo according to Holden our electrical system is not compatible with it . But if you look at our V8 Supercar series you will find that they have spent 6 years redeveloping and designing that same twin turbo out of the Cadillac ats-v only to come out a few monts ago and say that they are scrapping it for a V8. More than two and a half years ago Cadillac was spotted testing and developing some of their vehicles in Australia.
Pardon my cynicism but, I worked for Holden Engineering in the good times for over 20 years and I saw them cancel a 60 million dollar program overnight! Everything related to that program was scrapped! Their word is worthless!
Exciting vehicles.
But producing “exciting vehicles” is what POTUS Trump considers to be fraudulent and “taking advantage of” the USofA.
Like:
I am the GOD, thy MASTER. Thou shalt not make more attractive cars than the Big Three of the US automobile industry is able to put on the road, since this amounts to fraud. Thou shalt not have another GOD than GM, Ford and Chrysler!
Sequel: “What!? Chrysler is no more? Chrysler is now Italian!? That is the ultimate fraud!”