D Day for Holden

[juc33_prado Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close juc33_prado]

Great theory, except not everyone is cut out to go to university. What about the 50 something year olds that have worked on the production line all their working life, what happens to them?

There is no easy answer to this, but one thing is for sure, if Holden goes, many many people's lives will be devastated and they will not recover or find suitable meaningful employment elsewhere.

Cheers Andrew

yeah agreed Andrew, the solutions would be in a generational shift, no easy answer and it is a generalisation across the countries workforce.

our countries workforce has faced this change over the past 20 years already really, but as with everything, the media nowadays makes the problem seem much worse.

SAM

[juc33_prado Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close juc33_prado]

I don't agree that the Commodore doesn't stack up against imports. The current VF is a great car, just too little too late. The Cruze which is the other local is about par at best, my son bought a diesel manual and it is pretty fair but I think I still would have looked elsewhere.

GM HQ have decided to become an importer and retailer of cars in Oz and nothing could stop that. I think that GM will find that their products in the marketplace have less appeal than competitors and any loyalty will vanish. Other than my GTS I would not be looking at anything else in the line up. Mazdas ute is better than the Colorado, the less said about the Malibu the better. The rest of the range are bettered by the other many cars in their group.

Over the years I have owned quite a few of the local products, Ford, Holden, FPV and HSV and despite their failings I don't regret a single one. Frustrated at times but still no regrets. And the GTS, well that is one hell of a swan song.

would they ever consider producing the commodore offshore?

[cfryback Find all posts View Profile Close cfryback]

would they ever consider producing the commodore offshore?

Why? "Australian Designed" - is just a GM/Chevy Caprice "tweaked" for Australia.

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

would they ever consider producing the commodore offshore?

They probably will, but its a fair bet that sales of the Commodore will plummet once the local factor is no longer in the equation. Its really one of Holden's great problems, they aren't building the cars that people want. Once they are no longer locally made then government fleet buyers will no longer favour them, and those who buy to support the local industry will look elsewhere for a better option.

With both Ford and Holden exiting the country I wonder what the future holds for V8 supercars?

Cheers Andrew

[MidLifeCrisis Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close MidLifeCrisis]

The format for V8's changed last year. They had to make decisions knowing Ford had said 2016 was their year of departure. The V8 series racing may look like they are production cars but nothing is further from the truth. I think Holden announced no more V8's except in one of the US muscle cars? Not 100% on that though.

[r4ndll Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close r4ndll]

Here's an interesting quote from this mornings SMH :"One of the few things that Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott used to agree on was that, if you wanted a prosperous modern economy, you had to have a car industry.
This was news to Switzerland. And Singapore. And Norway. And Denmark. None of these has any car manufacturing, yet all are among the top 10 richest countries in income per person."

Its just a shame the current government have also said "They can go work in mining"

[Corigator Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close Corigator]

...:"One of the few things that Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott used to agree on was that, if you wanted a prosperous modern economy, you had to have a car industry...."

That may or not be so, but you really do need to produce something. Service industries won't pay the national bills.

[mjrandom Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close mjrandom]

The Commodore is exported from here to a few countries and none of the volumes of production would warrant continued manufacture. The other complication is that the only other GM car on the same platform is the current two door Camaro and that is changing with the next Camaro to be built on the same platform as the Cadillac CTS from next year in Canada I believe. There is hope for a four door GM if that is your want as there are rumours of the CTS-V coming here from 2016 ish. Certainly HSV are working on something post Commodore. Apparently. As for V8 engines there is lots of talk of the new direct injected 8 with one or two turbochargers and also a direct injected V6 with twin turbos so power is unlikely to be an issue. The question is though if GM think the Malibu is all Australians want from a four door then the genuine buyers will go elsewhere.

V8 supercars are just silhouette racers with many shared parts among the contenders. Even the body shells are cut and shut to suit the chassis dimensions. Given what they are and how parity is manipulated the Holden teams can easily graft any body on the chassis. Maybe a Trax supercar! What was a little interesting was Chevrolet introducing the Chevrolet SS (Commodore exported to the US) as the body for their NASCAR. One hell of a marketing effort for a couple of years of production.

[AJ120 Out of control poster! Find all posts View Profile Close AJ120]

Yes I realize that the V8 super cars are not anything to do with the reality of the Falcons and Commodores available at your local dealer. However Motorsport is all about win on Sunday and sell on Monday. So if the demise of Falcon and Commodores in Australia leads to only a tiny market for anything vaguely resembling the race cars will that lead to a change of class? I can see the V8 supercar tag reverting back to touring cars, then maybe 2 litre touring cars which would likely better reflect the car market as we near 2020.

It's a changing world we live in.

Cheers Andrew

[photoprado Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close photoprado]

The super cars have started to open up again, probably won't be that long before Nissan or Mercedes take out the title. Perhaps the fans will be more tolerant once all the cars are imports.

The racing has always been more interesting when there are more brands around than just Ford and Holden. Be great to see the 2 litre tourers here!

[cfryback Find all posts View Profile Close cfryback]

The super cars have started to open up again, probably won't be that long before Nissan or Mercedes take out the title. Perhaps the fans will be more tolerant once all the cars are imports.

The racing has always been more interesting when there are more brands around than just Ford and Holden. Be great to see the 2 litre tourers here!

That is with rally car club I belong to - only a couple of guys run Holdens, the rest are Datto's, Subie's and a couple of RX7's - all under 2l. Something about being in the forrest and hearing a 1800 Datto going full pelt!

[juc33_prado Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close juc33_prado]

expand the WRC, more dirt less track I say! Dirt is so much better!

[cfryback Find all posts View Profile Close cfryback]

expand the WRC, more dirt less track I say! Dirt is so much better!

Yep, know mates who competed in the Alpine Rally in Victoria - sad that they had to retire due to a bent frame rails (metal fatigue), as they climbed from 30th to top 10 before retiring!

[kav Avid PP Poster! Find all posts View Profile Close kav]

V8 supercars ! You mean NASCAR with corners don't you , the writing was on the wall when they started having US style marching bands playing before the start of the race , WTF ?

[juc33_prado Advanced Member Find all posts View Profile Close juc33_prado]

V8 supercars ! You mean NASCAR with corners don't you , the writing was on the wall when they started having US style marching bands playing before the start of the race , WTF ?

maybe with the impending departure, GM is trying to lure more yanks here with their nascars to replace the V8's...