176 replies to this topic

[lemonaro]

No surprise this morning that GM has announced that the Holden brand will be gone by 2021, just didn't think it would happen so soon.

I grew up in Elizabeth, had family and friends work in the Elizabeth plant for most of my life so to see such and iconic brand gone is sad for Australia.

Looks like a future of 4 cylinder cars racing in supercars and Bathurst.

[hanra]

Goooooooone. Yeah I thought 2025 would be about the year. But I guess, why flog a dead horse. I thought GM might have re-branded it to Chevrolet but that dosnt seem to be the case either... 

Edited by hanra, 17 February 2020 - 12:42 PM.

[V-SLR5000-P]

https://www.caradvic...ywfY0c11Qc9Cngk

[yel327]

Bad but inevitable given what they have been selling. I wonder what this means for HSV?

[VZ1_60]

HSV as we knew it went with the VFII, the unloved Camaro and that truck thing don't really mean very much.

 

I feel very sorry for the dealers who remained loyal to the brand, and all their staff.

 

Big investment in people, premises and equipment basically redundant overnight unless you have another franchise and / or a very, very, good used car sales division.

 

Poor management decisions led to this, however GM obviously don't see any value in the right hand drive markets for now, I guess once we go electric / driverless, left or right becomes meaningless in the car design.

[dascind]

May well we say God Save the Holden badge,

Because nothing will save those in Detroit.

 

And once upon a time, we sang:

'We got football, meat pies and Holden cars.'

 

Now it will be:

'We got football, meat pies and Honda cars.'

[dascind]

Hey Detroit.

 

Any chance of a 2 billion dollar refund to us Aussie tax payers?

[yel327]

HSV as we knew it went with the VFII, the unloved Camaro and that truck thing don't really mean very much.

I feel very sorry for the dealers who remained loyal to the brand, and all their staff.

Big investment in people, premises and equipment basically redundant overnight unless you have another franchise and / or a very, very, good used car sales division.

Poor management decisions led to this, however GM obviously don't see any value in the right hand drive markets for now, I guess once we go electric / driverless, left or right becomes meaningless in the car design.

Unfortunately the GFC is what killed Holden. They had far bigger plans for the VE platform with dual cabs, cab-chassis etc. plus exports in LHD. The VE based Camaro was engineered to be the RHD replacement for the V2-VZ Monaro but was never tooled RHD as the GFC hit with Camaro only just getting through. The GFC nearly killed GM and Holden is now another casualty like Pontiac. I still reckon Holden made some silly decisions but I think they were simply puppets of GM Corporate unfortunately. I agree that RHD is meaningless to them in the overall scheme of things. We can thank the damn British for that! The Colonists in the USA threw them out and they chose the RHT/LHD path, probably copied the French who helped them overthrow the Brits.

[arrimar]

Guess there'll be a few nice big Holden signs for the garage available soon.

[eyepeeler]

Guess there'll be a few nice big Holden signs for the garage available soon.

 

That would be cool to have in the shed.....

[arrimar]

That would be cool to have in the shed.....

When Armstrong Holden Woolloongabba changed their signage to the modern Lion I asked for the old sign. They said if I could move it I could have it, along with the big blue GM sign. They're much bigger than they look once they're on the ground.
With no where to store them I had to leave them.

[claysummers]

Globalisation killed the Aussie auto industry not the gfc. It’s all part of the plan.

I heard today that On The Run have bought the BP label in south aus. Perry’s etc are rebranding to Shell.

Agree with Lazarus that they died for me circa WB.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Ice]

It's been pretty much gone since the WB for me, but yeah, I did feel a bit sad to see the local Holden club post that today.

You need to get your head out of the sand
just for a change

[Ice]

Im glad in a way now they wont make cars aussies dont want

[RallyRed]

Bloody sad indeed.
GFC?..
didn't help....Government?...Unions?....nuh.
Aussies killed them...if they had sold 120000 VFs a year, they'd still be making them.
Aussies determined they wanted other cars.
Having said that..the Goverment made a dumb decision is removing support, one of the very few countries in the world to do it.
Doesn't really matter..it's done.
Regardless, its gone forever, along with a whole pile of skills from shop floor to engineering office, that will most likely never return.
p.s.
a photo shoot at home today for the local paper's story tomorrow. Will be interesting to see how the words turn out. Old mate's LJ for a bit of colour.

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•  rps20200217_201936.jpg   154.99K   7 downloads
•  rps20200217_202143.jpg   144.46K   6 downloads

[Ice]

Give ya 20K for the VF Col

[yel327]

Bloody sad indeed.
GFC?..
didn't help....Government?...Unions?....nuh.
Aussies killed them...if they had sold 120000 VFs a year, they'd still be making them.
Aussies determined they wanted other cars.
Having said that..the Goverment made a dumb decision is removing support, one of the very few countries in the world to do it.
Doesn't really matter..it's done.
Regardless, its gone forever, along with a whole pile of skills from shop floor to engineering office, that will most likely never return.
p.s.
a photo shoot at home today for the local paper's story tomorrow. Will be interesting to see how the words turn out. Old mate's LJ for a bit of colour.

They may have sold 120,000 VF a year if they had been able to make VF’s people wanted and also expanded the LHD market, but as I said the GFC stopped any further expansion of that platform. I never bought a VE or VF as there was no coupe and nothing could tow even 2250kg in those series. In VZ there were a few that could. Even that may not have worked though as the market shifted away from that sort of car and those sort of engines.

[RallyRed]

Yes, the market moved for sure.
Can't sell VF2s when they want Kia Rios.

Edited by RallyRed, 17 February 2020 - 07:41 PM.

[u1 71]

Hi Col,The plates on your friends car Xu1 72b were on a glacier white LJ XU1

[rodomo]

Guess there'll be a few nice big Holden signs for the garage available soon.

 

Attached Files

•  holden sign .JPG   278.52K   4 downloads

[RallyRed]

Hi Col,The plates on your friends car Xu1 72b were on a glacier white LJ XU1

hmm..he also has a white LJ..on Club Rego I think...maybe he swapped them over, so as to keep the 72b ones...

[Ice]

Will do Mark ✌️bro

[dascind]

Who do we barrack for at Bathurst now ... ? Hmmmm