Will the Holden brand survive?

[lra]

How quickly people forget …… Belgium billionaire Guido Dumarey wanted to buy the factory and the rights to continue building a ZETA based vehicle, GM (not Holden) flatly refused.

GM thought they could continue to sell imported rubbish, and nobody would notice, and nothing would change. GM are now not interested in Australia or the future of Holden. Full stop.

[mick taylor]

Fact is that making cars in Australia was never viable, right form the beginning of the FX Holden one can understand that fact, as GM said so and it was only due to the Government plans that such ever happened, they created a Tariff system and that was the Key to it all and then they reduced this and then had to prop it up like we seen in the end and it was only then that the stupid Australian public complained, what fools ! and then running around having a spac attack about such.
It always was propped up by the government.

Australia benefit from such as a Nation and when we have a strong Dollar and we can use the 3rd world to make such cheap products and other factors taken into consideration.

[Vesper Martini]

Originally Posted by janddbone

If Holden have any future it will be with Fiat/Peugeot.

Wouldn't that require breaking from GM? besides there are already Fiats & Pugs on sale here..


Back in Feb there was talk of Opel coming back again..
https://www.caradvice.com.au/724868/...tralia-return/

given the recent sales, I doubt they would bother

[janddbone]

Originally Posted by Bevsta007

Wouldn't that require breaking from GM? besides there are already Fiats & Pugs on sale here..


Back in Feb there was talk of Opel coming back again..
https://www.caradvice.com.au/724868/...tralia-return/

given the recent sales, I doubt they would bother

It sure would. I think GM would entertain selling Holden for any value at all. It would be a long shot absolutely.

If you want to make Holden sales look good again, compare to all of Fiat, Chrysler, Peugeot, Citroen combined. Only Jeep has any volume.

I could see all that combined at least offering the dealers a good range of vehicles to sell in the longer term.

Or we could just as easily see all of the above vanish from Australia of course.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by anobserver

Reading the press release, its shocking how many cars outsold the opeldore last month.

Holden sold 469 commodores.

Others that sold more include...
Suzuki swift 538
Mercedes c class 546
Kia carnival 587
Hyundai accent 529

How the mighty, etc.

They actually sold 309 Commodores in November.

Originally Posted by Nikked

At some point, GM will have to make a decision if it is better off rebranding the existing Holden network to Chevrolet.

More likely GM will just pull out of Australia like they did Europe, South Africa and India. RHD would only make up a tiny fraction of GM production now. They will get to the point of not bothering with it soon, and just sell cars in North America and China.

There is no point investing in RHD vehicles if there is not enough sales to support it.

[Vormund]

GM do not have a great history of selling off brands. They'd rather close them down.

PSA might bring the cars back over as Vauxhall? Share it with the UK which is also RHD.

Opel might still be a bit iffy to consumers since the withdrawal a few years back.

[hayseed]

Originally Posted by janddbone

Or we could just as easily see all of the above vanish from Australia of course.

Given the Minuscule Size of our Market, that's the most likely scenario... IMHO

[CyberWasp]

The only thing left to do now is to go out and have 10 children each.
Then our market will be the size of the USA, which will give us many more options.

[bathurst77]

GM willl decide they cant make money engineering building and selling a tiny number of rhd cars and pull out of aust/nz completely.

Sell the name and tiny good will

to

Ford
who will release a fwd suv called the fj holden Falcon

[DFB FGXR6]

https://www.caradvice.com.au/812053/...ture-in-doubt/

"The future of the Holden Commodore is in doubt, with insiders claiming it is likely to come to an unceremonious end about 12 months from now, bringing down the curtain on a tumultuous 42-year run."

[EBSXR6]

Originally Posted by DFB FGXR6

https://www.caradvice.com.au/812053/...ture-in-doubt/

"The future of the Holden Commodore is in doubt, with insiders claiming it is likely to come to an unceremonious end about 12 months from now, bringing down the curtain on a tumultuous 42-year run."

Holden is denying the Commode is finished, I say Bulldust.

[Thunderbird]

GM Dealers.. Heritage Holden. Signs will say "GM" they will sell Camaro, Chevy light and meduim commercial vehicles.. and Corvette.. and .. Cadillac. Check WHO on www.CadillacAustralia.com just registered. Holden..like respect for elders.. honest politicians and the stay at home mum.. will all be .. forgotten quickly.

[csv8]

Escalade would be great at the right price.

[cheap]

Surfing though YouTube and every second advertisement is for some POS Holden product.

Holden your advertisements sux and interrupt me from watching what I want to watch. So save what little of your money you still have and just go away.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by cheap

Surfing though YouTube and every second advertisement is for some POS Holden product.

Holden your advertisements sux and interrupt me from watching what I want to watch. So save what little of your money you still have and just go away.

Ads are generally tailored to your browsing history so you must visit a lot of Holden sites?

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by mick taylor

Fact is that making cars in Australia was never viable, right form the beginning of the FX Holden one can understand that fact, as GM said so and it was only due to the Government plans that such ever happened, they created a Tariff system and that was the Key to it all and then they reduced this and then had to prop it up like we seen in the end and it was only then that the stupid Australian public complained, what fools ! and then running around having a spac attack about such.
It always was propped up by the government.

Australia benefit from such as a Nation and when we have a strong Dollar and we can use the 3rd world to make such cheap products and other factors taken into consideration.

So the end result is that we have over $30 Billion in revenue flowing out of this country every year
as opposed to say, giving the local industry protection and support of a couple of billion annually.

So glad that people are willing to write off value adding in this country, no wonder why we're
becoming a country full of baristas and wait people at cafes, we're giving away our wealth,
all of it whipped up by Murdoch press and Toby Hardon tearing into the value of Australian made.

Quite Hilarious that GM now says local manufacturing was never profitable when in fact,
GM made strong profits in this country all the way from the 1950s through to the 1980s
when the government started messing with the tried and proven economic formula.
All for the sake of cheap cars which are now going up in price thanks to no local competition.
A 30,000 Falcon wan't good business for Ford but it sure as heck kept a lid on import prices.

[Whistlr]

Originally Posted by jpd80

So the end result is that we have over $30 Billion in revenue flowing out of this country every year
as opposed to say, giving the local industry protection and support of a couple of billion annually.

So glad that people are willing to write off value adding in this country, no wonder why we're
becoming a country full of baristas and wait people at cafes, we're giving away our wealth,
all of it whipped up by Murdoch press and Toby Hardon tearing into the value of Australian made.

Quite Hilarious that GM now says local manufacturing was never profitable when in fact,
GM made strong profits in this country all the way from the 1950s through to the 1980s
when the government started messing with the tried and proven economic formula.
All for the sake of cheap cars which are now going up in price thanks to no local competition.
A 30,000 Falcon wan't good business for Ford but it sure as heck kept a lid on import prices.

Tony Hardon. He's a muppet.

His recent piece on this shows his hypocrisy.
He sites what you just said but never did the media ever try to lobby to protect the industry. All they knew how to do was, for like 25 years, predict the death of the Falcon until they turned people off it. Then he has the nerve to say "the reasons why Holden is now suffering is because of government decisions made decades ago".



At least Falcon went out gracefully.

[cheap]

Originally Posted by prydey

Ads are generally tailored to your browsing history so you must visit a lot of Holden sites?

Lots of auto channels, never ever any Holden sites.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Whistlr

Tony Hardon. He's a muppet.

His recent piece on this shows his hypocrisy.
He sites what you just said but never did the media ever try to lobby to protect the industry. All they knew how to do was, for like 25 years, predict the death of the Falcon until they turned people off it. Then he has the nerve to say "the reasons why Holden is now suffering is because of government decisions made decades ago".



At least Falcon went out gracefully.

I think that good practical, people in Ford, Holden and the Federal government were
over ruled so that cutting industry funding was seen as the greater good over those
wanting to support those "evil" corporations not willing to take the risk on their own products...

A business plan can be made to say whatever you want and there's no better way to torpedo
an existing product than to say, "oh the business case didn't stack up" it's a great way to
kill off a product and any discussion to the contrary because who's going to argue with
the people with the figures.....

the same people who said Focus with a DCT was viable and a true auto not..

[Vesper Martini]

Heard this on the radio yesterday - over in the US GM have axed the Buick Regal.
which for those that don't know is the same thing we call the Commodore here.
and they were selling 11,000 a quarter!

Id say an announcement is only days away here. if not sooner

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/04/gm-a...t-to-suvs.html


PSA may even make the announcement as its probably not viable without the US market.

[Vormund]

Originally Posted by cheap

Lots of auto channels, never ever any Holden sites.

That would do it then. I was browsing so much Korean stuff (food, language
etc.) that I was starting to get ads completely in Korean.

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by Bevsta007

Id say an announcement is only days away here. if not sooner

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/04/gm-a...t-to-suvs.html

https://www.motoring.com.au/holden-c...e-safe-121966/

[Cashie]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird

GM Dealers.. Heritage Holden. Signs will say "GM" they will sell Camaro, Chevy light and meduim commercial vehicles.. and Corvette.. and .. Cadillac. Check WHO on www.CadillacAustralia.com just registered. Holden..like respect for elders.. honest politicians and the stay at home mum.. will all be .. forgotten quickly.

That website was registered by the importer of GMC trucks (https://american.com.au) in 2005 and updated in 2017, not any of the vehicle manufacturers. https://who.is/whois/cadillacaustralia.com
I'd say they are/were considering doing some low volume imports of a few fast Cadillac models.
GM should be doing this, why o why they haven't been designing their cars for both LHD and RHD for years is beyond me. surely doing this during design doesn't add a crazy amount to the development costs enabling the numbers to add up for the expected RHD sales...

[Vesper Martini]

Originally Posted by BENT_8

https://www.motoring.com.au/holden-c...e-safe-121966/

ahh I didn't realize the US Buick Regal was built in China.

Regardless of the facelift:
These include a new front bumper, grille and headlights with next-generation IntelliLux LED technology and LED DRLs positioned at the split-level bottom instead of the top.

its issue here is numbers.

[Cashie]

Originally Posted by Bevsta007

its issue here is numbers.

And the fact it doesn't resonate here...
I really wanted to love (I'd have settled for like) the car when I was shopping recently and went for a Stinger, it just lacks character and that damn front end (grill) made me spew. To give it any chance Holden needs to stop calling it a damn Commodore, stop trying to make it into something it isn't. In isolation the car's specs read pretty well.

The updated model looks pretty good, just get rid of those Opal Spears out of the grill if they are being rebadged as Holdens


Old model

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by Bevsta007

ahh I didn't realize the US Buick Regal was built in China.

Regardless of the facelift:
These include a new front bumper, grille and headlights with next-generation IntelliLux LED technology and LED DRLs positioned at the split-level bottom instead of the top.

its issue here is numbers.

Not really, there's plenty of brands with entrants selling less than 400/month, the bigger issue for Holden is its existing dealer network, too many to remain viable on the reduced numbers.

That's if GM cares to continue on with it of coarse.

Now that local manufacturing has ceased and the two rivals don't have anything competing with the other, im not sure why theres still so much hatred towards either from the other, if Holden go theres no moral victory, Holden was only ever GM's local arm, it doesn't manufacture here anymore so it has no relevance.
Lets imagine they close up tomorrow, then what, Ford survive being outsold by a bunch of Jap/Koreans, and GM might hang around selling a few of their offerings, nothing to get excited about outside of this forum.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Bevsta007

ahh I didn't realize the US Buick Regal was built in China.

Regardless of the facelift:
These include a new front bumper, grille and headlights with next-generation IntelliLux LED technology and LED DRLs positioned at the split-level bottom instead of the top.

its issue here is numbers.

Different engines, the north American Regal comes from Germany due to
taxes of chinese vehicles, the Chinese Regals have smaller turbo engines...

But nice deflect from Holden, I would expect the RHD set up and different
engines would take time to organise unless this has been planned for a while

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Bevsta007

Heard this on the radio yesterday - over in the US GM have axed the Buick Regal.
which for those that don't know is the same thing we call the Commodore here.
and they were selling 11,000 a quarter!

Same with the Fusion. They sold in droves, but they would lose money on each and every one of them. The incentives required just to move them off dealer lots was routinely into the US $8K area. Basically could only sell them if they removed all the profit margin.

Keep in mind the dealer incentives to move an F series averages about 2-3K, on a vehicle which costs significantly more, while probably being cheaper to build, and you can see why cars like Fusion are a dead end, and pick up trucks are a cash cow.

[jpd80]

Ford stays because it has vehicle sales that make profits for the company
Holden stays because Ford stays, that's not a good business plan...

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Same with the Fusion. They sold in droves, but they would lose money on each and every one of them. The incentives required just to move them off dealer lots was routinely into the US $8K area. Basically could only sell them if they removed all the profit margin.

Keep in mind the dealer incentives to move an F series averages about 2-3K, on a vehicle which costs significantly more, while probably being cheaper to build, and you can see why cars like Fusion are a dead end, and pick up trucks are a cash cow.

Ford actually set Fusion up for the kill in 2015 by doing a very modest refresh,
that guaranteed that high series sport and Titanium buyers didn't return but
instead went to other vehicles, not necessarily Fords.

In a crazy stupid move, Ford tried to kill off Fusion only to be told by dealers that
the name has huge sales cache, so the new crossover will be called Fusion and
based on Chinese CD5 Mondeo.