Holden Deletes Cars from its Website...

[csv8]

"As the clock winds down on the brand in Australia, Holden's customer-facing website has dropped all references to its former list of vehicles.

General Motors announced in February that the Holden brand would cease operating in December, prompting a huge run on remaining stocks of Holdens.

As recently as August, Holden was still advertising that it was selling its remaining vehicles, including the Colorado ute and the Equinox SUV, but now the site has wound back to include on the most basic information about the brand, including warranty and basic service information.

Any evidence that the once-great company sold cars - besides a single paragraph on the home page about remaining dealer stock - has disappeared.



Information about the last remaining car in the Holden catalogue, the incoming Chevrolet Corvette C8, has been moved to a new site for GM Special Vehicles, the company that will become the de-facto GM importer for Australia from the beginning of 2021.

MORE Holden dealers question GMSV's legal status

Many dealers are also starting to remove Holden signage from the front of their dealerships, as seen in the Facebook post below.



Holden also recently signed off on the sale of its historic Lang Lang proving ground to Vietnamese company Vinfast.

MORE Tracking Holden Commodore SS prices

The company has been understandably silent about plans to farewell the brand internally.

The upcoming Bathurst 1000 - where only a token crowd will be allowed to attend - will mark the last Supercars race where Holden will feature as a factory team, while the Bathurst International is planning a large Holden gathering at its event in November."
https://www.whichcar.com.au/car-news...ebsite-no-cars

[CobraJet351]

What a sad day

[fiestaz]

It’s just sad really. So much Australian history.

[Crazy Dazz]

If it weren't for the Ranger, I suspect Ford would be next.

The problem stems from their decades long psychotic approach to products other than the Commode. Every time they looked at getting anything like a positive reputation or brand loyalty, they'd scrap that car, and go find something else.
Pick a random date from the last 30 years, and I would struggle to tell you what they were selling (other than the Commode).
Australia, Korean, German, Spanish, Mexican?
Opel, Isuzu, Daewoo, Toyota, Nissan, Chevy, Suzuki?

The Commode dominated for so long, that they were apparently content to become a one-car company, which a bunch of other stuff nobody knew much about.
Then, somewhat predictably, they screwed that up too.

It would have been the equivalent of Ford re-badging the Mondeo as a falcon and pinning all their hoes on that.

Apart from Taxis (dominated by Camry) the big sedan segment was dying in the ****. Maybe they could have carved out a niche for a performance leaning RWD family sedan (even if made in China, Korea, or Mexico) but instead they pinned their hopes on yet another re-badged Opel, a FWD 4-cylinder, in a shrinking market already teaming with better offerings.
Again, had they done something, anything, in the past 30 years, to grab a decent slice of that market, then they might have had some ongoing success. But if you want such a car, you buy a Camry. If you can't afford that, you buy a Hyundai. If you want something snazzier, then you buy a more exotic European.

End of the day, their Brand, was worth nothing. It would and should have been a golden opportunity for somebody to flog their product in Australia. But no, not worth a cracker.

[jpd80]

Without a locally manufactured vehicle, there was no point to continuing Holden
amazingly, buyers had to show GM just how true that was by deserting the brand.

[XD 351 Ute]

Originally Posted by Crazy Dazz

If it weren't for the Ranger, I suspect Ford would be next.

Sadly, I believe their time is coming also, as far as I am concerned at least.

They just have nothing that I want. Nothing that makes me want to race into the showroom and drive away. Not even anything on the secondhand market that is relatively recent to add to my stable or update.
As good as the ranger is supposed to be, I just can't gel to it, and the 'Stang is really only a weekend toy. (I have a couple of those already! - Toys that is.)

Everything else, I'm just not interested in.

Ever since I was first able to associate meaningfully with cars, I have loved my Fords. Yes, mostly the Aussie versions, but always had a soft spot for Mustang, Bronco, F-111, GT40, etc. So the ingrained love of Ford has been a lifelong passion.

I truly understand how heartbroken the Holden blokes must feel, we have lost one of Australia's most endearing icons. The Chrysler Australia faithful went through it first, and eventually I believe it will be our turn.. :(

Ed.

[csv8]

Tropical Ford Rockhampton have the Focus at $25,990 drive away thats $5k off....

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by Crazy Dazz

If it weren't for the Ranger, I suspect Ford would be next.

The problem stems from their decades long psychotic approach to products other than the Commode. Every time they looked at getting anything like a positive reputation or brand loyalty, they'd scrap that car, and go find something else.
Pick a random date from the last 30 years, and I would struggle to tell you what they were selling (other than the Commode).
Australia, Korean, German, Spanish, Mexican?
Opel, Isuzu, Daewoo, Toyota, Nissan, Chevy, Suzuki?

The Commode dominated for so long, that they were apparently content to become a one-car company, which a bunch of other stuff nobody knew much about.
Then, somewhat predictably, they screwed that up too.

It would have been the equivalent of Ford re-badging the Mondeo as a falcon and pinning all their hoes on that.

Apart from Taxis (dominated by Camry) the big sedan segment was dying in the ****. Maybe they could have carved out a niche for a performance leaning RWD family sedan (even if made in China, Korea, or Mexico) but instead they pinned their hopes on yet another re-badged Opel, a FWD 4-cylinder, in a shrinking market already teaming with better offerings.
Again, had they done something, anything, in the past 30 years, to grab a decent slice of that market, then they might have had some ongoing success. But if you want such a car, you buy a Camry. If you can't afford that, you buy a Hyundai. If you want something snazzier, then you buy a more exotic European.

End of the day, their Brand, was worth nothing. It would and should have been a golden opportunity for somebody to flog their product in Australia. But no, not worth a cracker.

Holden being a branch of GM always left them at the mercy of what the parent company afforded them. That they allowed a locally designed and built product to survive as long as it did is actually an achievement in reality.
With Commodore a memory, so too would the Holden brand become, it was on borrowed time from that moment. GM simply gave us a token gesture in ZB knowing full well it wouldnt cut it at which point they could aportion blame to the consumer for it and the brands eventual demise.
Ford would follow suit if it werent for the healthy margins it gets building Ranger in our region and flogging it at top dollar.

[chevypower]

Interesting that gmsv and hsv will continue to operate completely separate websites.

[GCRXR6]

Originally Posted by csv8

"As the clock winds down on the brand in Australia, Holden's customer-facing website has dropped all references to its former list of vehicles.

General Motors announced in February that the Holden brand would cease operating in December, prompting a huge run on remaining stocks of Holdens.

As recently as August, Holden was still advertising that it was selling its remaining vehicles, including the Colorado ute and the Equinox SUV, but now the site has wound back to include on the most basic information about the brand, including warranty and basic service information.


Any evidence that the once-great company sold cars - besides a single paragraph on the home page about remaining dealer stock - has disappeared.



Information about the last remaining car in the Holden catalogue, the incoming Chevrolet Corvette C8, has been moved to a new site for GM Special Vehicles, the company that will become the de-facto GM importer for Australia from the beginning of 2021.

MORE Holden dealers question GMSV's legal status

Many dealers are also starting to remove Holden signage from the front of their dealerships, as seen in the Facebook post below.



Holden also recently signed off on the sale of its historic Lang Lang proving ground to Vietnamese company Vinfast.

MORE Tracking Holden Commodore SS prices

The company has been understandably silent about plans to farewell the brand internally.

The upcoming Bathurst 1000 - where only a token crowd will be allowed to attend - will mark the last Supercars race where Holden will feature as a factory team, while the Bathurst International is planning a large Holden gathering at its event in November."
https://www.whichcar.com.au/car-news...ebsite-no-cars

As of tonight, only one Equinox and one Camaro available at Lawrence Motors.

[Sprintey]

At least we will still have Tesla to be passionate about

[whynot]

Almost the final nail in the coffin of Australian built ICE vehicles. I seriously doubt that AU car manufacturing will rejuvenate when EV technology becomes more affordable.


Below is an interesting extract from the tail end of an article in the Wall Street Journal, and reproduced in The Australian a few days back. The whole article is definitely worth a read if you have a subscription to the Australian.

Both pieces of Ms Barra’s two-pronged strategy — exiting low-growth businesses while ploughing the capital into an electric future — were on full display early this year.

In February, GM said it would end its Australian Holden brand, a once-dominant brand and staple of the country’s car-crazy culture, known for rugged pick-up trucks and muscular sedans.

In Australia, car enthusiasts and politicians vented a sense of betrayal.

“General Motors may think the rich history of the Holden brand in Australia is worthless, but I think it’s priceless,” said one politician, Queensland Senator James McGrath, according to Australia’s Courier-Mail newspaper.

Then, in early March, GM invited hundreds of dealers, analysts and journalists to its suburban Detroit engineering centre. Ms Barra made her biggest statement yet that GM was betting its future on electric cars.

The CEO strolled the floor as visitors ogled a dozen future all-electric models, some several years from seeing the inside of showrooms — a rarity in an industry where future products are cloaked in secrecy. The models ranged from brawny pick-up trucks to a Cadillac that one executive said would be priced above $US200,000.

GM said it would spend $US20bn developing electric and driverless cars through mid-decade. It is targeting sales of 1 million electric-car sales annually by then. In Ohio, near a factory it closed last year, construction began recently with partner LG Chem on a battery-cell plant bigger than 40 football fields.

Still, it will be many years before electric vehicles take off, analysts say. High battery costs are likely to keep prices higher than conventionally powered cars through most of this decade, and a dearth of charging stations in the US will dampen consumer interest, they say.

So far, the early offerings from incumbent car companies have failed to achieve anywhere close to Tesla’s success.

As Ms Barra showed off GM’s future battery-powered cars, she was also confronting a new threat: a rapidly-spreading global pandemic. GM spent the spring scrambling to borrow more than $US20bn amid a multiweek factory shutdown from COVID-19, during which it bled billions in cash.

In June, Ms Barra sat with top executives inside GM’s design dome, a circa-1950s auditorium where generations of leaders have reviewed big Cadillac sedans with gaudy tailfins and Corvette sports cars.

This meeting was different: Ms Barra and her team sat at a large table, wearing masks, to decide which future vehicles were on the chopping block. Details of each model, from minor facelifts to major new entries, were spread across large digital wall charts, including launch dates and sales targets.

Some were delayed, others scrapped altogether. By the end of the meeting, all of the electric-vehicle projects on the board emerged untouched, along with a nearly $US3bn renovation of a Detroit factory and nearby facility to build them, Ms Barra said.

“The situation allowed us to look at things with a very clear eye,” she said.

[lra]

^^^^^ GM could build a car that runs on fresh air and moonbeams, put it on the market for $100, and I still would not buy it, on the principle that GM are corporate thieves.
$180 million Aus tax payer subsidy, per year, for the period 2001 > 2012. All down the toilet.

[Dr Terry]

Originally Posted by lra

$180 million Aus tax payer subsidy, per year, for the period 2001 > 2012. All down the toilet.

It wasn't only GM-H, but also Ford, Toyota, Mitsubishi & others all got huge subsidies to build cars here.

It didn't exactly go down the toilet, the car workers got an extra 20 years or so of income. The Australian car industry (all brands) hadn't been self sufficient for decades.

Dr Terry

[hayseed]

Originally Posted by Dr Terry

The Australian car industry (all brands) hadn't been self sufficient for decades.

Basically being on the Govt Tit since forever...

[Gothefalcon]

Originally Posted by Dr Terry

. The Australian car industry (all brands) hadn't been self sufficient for decades.
Dr Terry

The Car industry.... and many more industries... are propped up by Govt. all over the world ! The only difference is, elsewhere they see it as an investment in the Country's future, and recognize that the skills, technology, trickle down/follow on investment & returns, etc, and to some extent, a sense of national pride, is all tied up within that initial investment.

D

[Dr Terry]

Originally Posted by Gothefalcon

The Car industry.... and many more industries... are propped up by Govt. all over the world ! The only difference is, elsewhere they see it as an investment in the Country's future, and recognize that the skills, technology, trickle down/follow on investment & returns, etc, and to some extent, a sense of national pride, is all tied up within that initial investment.

D

You are quite correct. The 2 problems we had in the Australian market however were, our relatively small population & the high wages of the lower skilled workers.

Of all of the countries worldwide which design & manufacture cars from the ground up (as Ford & Holden did) our population was by far the smallest. If we had 50-60 million people it would be a different story.

We always had a problem with the unions wanting too much. I know many skilled tradies who would love the wages some of these factory assembly workers were getting.

Our wage scales here are all out of kilter, the rot began in the 70s. Not much we can do now, the damage is done.

Wages should be skilled based, not allotted by who has the strongest union.

Dr Terry

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Sprintey

At least we will still have Tesla to be passionate about

Meat pies, Kangaroos, Electric Jesus and Thailand Specials!

[Crazy Dazz]

When you bought an Australian Made Car (Or anything)
The company ideally tried to make a profit and pays company tax.
They paid FBT on the cars provided to staff
They paid payroll tax and land tax to the state government.
Of the money they paid to workers or local suppliers, a big slice of that went to income tax.
What was left over in the pay-packet each week largely went to paying other Australians, paying rent, buying food, paying for utilities. So of that amount, further portions went to government in company tax, income tax, payroll tax, and non-claimable GST.
You also employed Australians, keeping them off the pension and dole, and those Australians in turn employed other Australians.
You also trained Australians and gave them skills.
As was widely acknowledged at the time, the subsidies given for Australian=Built cars was substantially less than the tax earned in return.

When you buy your Thai special, the government gets the GST, and that's it. ANd the only Australian you've employed is the bloke driving it off the ship.

I would also point out that that the Thai government protects and subsidises its industry up the whazoo!

During Covid the govt has apparently recognised the importance of trying to keep the economy ticking over. Apparently losing your job because the Chinese couldn't keep it in their pants is bad.
But lose your job because tight-***** would rather buy cheap Chinese crap, and that's apparently ok.

I'm just lucky I work in Mining. It's a big country and there's plenty we haven't dug up yet.

[383hq]

Originally Posted by whynot

Almost the final nail in the coffin of Australian built ICE vehicles. I seriously doubt that AU car manufacturing will rejuvenate when EV technology becomes more affordable.


Below is an interesting extract from the tail end of an article in the Wall Street Journal, and reproduced in The Australian a few days back. The whole article is definitely worth a read if you have a subscription to the Australian.

The GM Tech centre has about 12,000 of its 20,000 tech staff working on EV at the moment...

[roKWiz]

Originally Posted by Dr Terry

Our wage scales here are all out of kilter, the rot began in the 70s. Not much we can do now, the damage is done.

Wages should be skilled based, not allotted by who has the strongest union.

Dr Terry

Yes agree, we went down that path with Leyland Australia at the time.

[mick taylor]

Originally Posted by Crazy Dazz

When you bought an Australian Made Car (Or anything)
The company ideally tried to make a profit and pays company tax.
They paid FBT on the cars provided to staff
They paid payroll tax and land tax to the state government.
Of the money they paid to workers or local suppliers, a big slice of that went to income tax.
What was left over in the pay-packet each week largely went to paying other Australians, paying rent, buying food, paying for utilities. So of that amount, further portions went to government in company tax, income tax, payroll tax, and non-claimable GST.
You also employed Australians, keeping them off the pension and dole, and those Australians in turn employed other Australians.
You also trained Australians and gave them skills.
As was widely acknowledged at the time, the subsidies given for Australian=Built cars was substantially less than the tax earned in return.

When you buy your Thai special, the government gets the GST, and that's it. ANd the only Australian you've employed is the bloke driving it off the ship.

I would also point out that that the Thai government protects and subsidises its industry up the whazoo!

During Covid the govt has apparently recognised the importance of trying to keep the economy ticking over. Apparently losing your job because the Chinese couldn't keep it in their pants is bad.
But lose your job because tight-***** would rather buy cheap Chinese crap, and that's apparently ok.

I'm just lucky I work in Mining. It's a big country and there's plenty we haven't dug up yet.

We don't want to make anything here in Australia ! don't you know that we are a rich country. I have been informed this twaddle many a time.
Not to mention that the Greens and Socialist want to make everyone equal, it's not fair that another has more than another, so welcome to becoming a 2ed world Country as the 3rd world becomes into the 2ed world as well and then we all can become the 3rd world standards under a dictatorship that no one can aspire to get out of poverty regardless.

A new world were everyone becomes equal nothings, how wonderful. everyone down to the level of child molesters or such, just remember everyone is your equal. oh and their is not enough women representing the Government! oh no ! we are offending the equality gods, and where does all such dribble end. blacks, whites, reds, yellows, short, tall, fat, young, old

I know that I am not equal to anyone in any way or form and I have never seen or met anyone who was equal to anyone in my whole life and that's a fact.

Hey I was pointing out that I am starting to loose my hair and a mate had no sympathy for me, because he is balled. well !thou shall not offend the Political Correctness gods, or we will use malic against you.

[Big_Daz]

Its no real surprise, of course the cars would be taken off the website.. You can no longer buy them anyway.... GMSV will be interesting.. Corvette is confirmed with them, hopefully they can get some of the more decent US offerings in (CTSV Cadillacs would be good).

Its become more "Real" for me recently... The holden dealer I bought my redline from, and who services it, is right next door to the Kia Dealer we got are getting our Sorento from... When we where there, the Holden Signage had come down, the last few Holdens/HSV's they had moved to their other site and it has become Mitsubishi... To be expected obviously but still more than a little sad...

[MITCHAY]

I know Holden wanted to build at least an SUV and given the Territory they would have pulled it off.

If they dug **** out of the ground I reckon Holden and Ford would still be around.

What gets me was the LCT was supposed to protect the local industry but yet it applied to local built cars WTF?

And then we still have LCT

[MITCHAY]

Double post

[Dr Terry]

Originally Posted by MITCHAY

What gets me was the LCT was supposed to protect the local industry but yet it applied to local built cars WTF?

And then we still have LCT

The LCT was never meant to protect the local industry. It was meant to be a revenue stream by making buyers of 'expensive' cars pay extra.

The cut-off was just above the price of our most expensive Holdens & Fords, that was the Caprice & the LTD, so it was never applied to the local product.

We still have the LCT because it's a good earner for the Govt. as there are plenty of 'rich' people spending money on 'expensive' cars.

Dr Terry

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Dr Terry

The LCT was never meant to protect the local industry. It was meant to be a revenue stream by making buyers of 'expensive' cars pay extra.

The cut-off was just above the price of our most expensive Holdens & Fords, that was the Caprice & the LTD, so it was never applied to the local product.

We still have the LCT because it's a good earner for the Govt. as there are plenty of 'rich' people spending money on 'expensive' cars.

Dr Terry

Correct, the LCT was intended as a second tier tax above GST as a replacement for the
former wholesale sales tax and originally it was 25% but Labor's treasurer increased it to
33% in 2008 to raise $670 million keeping his budget balanced.

This is governments meddling in what should be a free market, they should get rid of it
and just take the GST, sales would actually increase and they'd get just as much tax from
more buyers purchasing higher priced vehicles.

[aussie muscle]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Without a locally manufactured vehicle, there was no point to continuing Holden.

We'll be screwed (again) if there's ever another war in the Pacific. Holden was set up mostly because of the issues of importing everything during WW2. With the chest beating from China, it may happen sooner than you think.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by aussie muscle

We'll be screwed (again) if there's ever another war in the Pacific. Holden was set up mostly because of the issues of importing everything during WW2. With the chest beating from China, it may happen sooner than you think.

If the superpowers go at it, having parts here will be the least of our concerns,
getting +2,000 sunblock will be more important .

[hayseed]

Originally Posted by jpd80

This is governments meddling in what should be a free market, they should get rid of it
and just take the GST, sales would actually increase and they'd get just as much tax from
more buyers purchasing higher priced vehicles.

Agreed...