How did the Falcon/Commodore lose it all?

[HULK_I6T]

Growing up I could always remember either the falcon or the commodore at the top of the sales charts. Every motor/wheels magazine was a falcon vs commodore shoot out. The Australian public loved them and there was daylight to anything else.

But somewhere along the way it all went out the window? Now from 2016 falcon will be gone and commodore likely to go too. It seems no one wants them anymore?

But where did it all go so wrong? Have the cars grown up in size too much? Too much competitive pressure from other car makers? Needs of the common family changed? Fuel prices and living costs? Requirement to have baby seats in cars? A particular model was released? Government departments started buying other cars?? Australian industry couldn't keep pace with other nations?

What's your rationale for when things started to go horribly wrong and lead the falcodore to demise? When the war is over come 2016, Do we simply down tools and walk away? pick another car manufacturer? This community and the ls1 community become largely extinct?

What happened from what seemed like market domination to extinction?

[pottery beige]

on ya hulk

[PlukaDuck]

SUPPLY AND DEMAND.
I f people stop buying foreign cars then the problem is fixed.
If people don't buy second hand foreign cars then people wont buy new because they have no resale value.
If people elected a decent government with balls .....then the problems fixed.
Don't blame the government because THE PEOPLE ELCTED IT

Simply the only problem with Australia going down the ****** shoot
is Australians

[SpoolMan]

Originally Posted by f6_benito

When the war is over come 2016, Do we simply down tools and walk away? pick another car manufacturer? This community and the ls1 community become largely extinct?

The sky wont fall in, where loosing a couple of models and gaining many more, Ford will live on here in Australia and the rest of the world.
Picking another manufacturer means your going to buy an overseas car which will be our only option, unless you want a Camry and there still here in 2016.

[nstg8a]

I spent most of my life with falcon being an import anyway, so I guess it's not a big thing for me to cross shop other imports, but I can certainly see why for some its a bigger step to be looking at imports as the only option.

[Grippy]

Hulk, people aren't buying large sedans and wagons anymore, plus there's so much more choice in the way of reliable, tech packed cheap imports.

[cro142]

Where did they go wrong?

It's a market shift where the majority of the buying public now want either an SUV or a "city car", for lots of good reasons. Mainly something different as the need for larger sedans has faded due to smaller family structures and changed motoring behaviour - most now fly interstate rather than drive, as it's cheaper and quicker, so who needs a capable long-distance sedan? etc etc.

But, one of the BIG reasons is that the newly dominant SUV's and city cars are CHEAP, and loaded with gadgets. Gone are the days when a car was purchased for comfortable travel - now it's more important to have double-overhead-transmogrifying-electron drive scuff plates.

Simply put, the world has changed.
But I still absolutely love the way my XR6 Turbo eats country miles!!
Even after 900km you step out fresh-as.

P

[mik]

A market shift ? .......................if supremely focused japanese company like Toyota cant build and make a corolla or an aurion for a profit in Australia without exporting to keep them going (and that is debateable without govco funding)................ I'd say it is not just a ford/holden/commy /falcon problem, this is an industry wide cost problem...... and not only car maker problem on our little ozzy rock.

[Dave R]

Originally Posted by f6_benito

This community and the ls1 community become largely extinct?

This community is safe- Ford's future in this country is looking bright. The Mustang arrival is going to kickstart a new wave of enthusiasm that the brand hasn't seen in many years. Add that to all of the new global Ford products that we'll receive, things are looking good.

[b0son]

Originally Posted by Adrenaline

This community is safe- Ford's future in this country is looking bright. The Mustang arrival is going to kickstart a new wave of enthusiasm that the brand hasn't seen in many years.

There's a big difference between oohhs and aahhs at a motor show, or likes on a FB page, and people actually opening their wallet. What good is a big 2-door to the average person?

[Dave R]

Originally Posted by b0son

There's a big difference between oohhs and aahhs at a motor show, or likes on a FB page, and people actually opening their wallet. What good is a big 2-door to the average person?

I wasn't talking about sales, just enthusiasm for the brand. If it gets people back into Ford showrooms, it's done its job.

[ebxr8240]

Economy of scale , eventually they got too expensive to make here ! Much like our clothing industry 20 years ago. The cost per item is just too expensive now that thers a world market. Freight is way cheaper. Etc etc
Our fuel is imported now for much the same reasons. One big central plant is cheaper than 100's around the world .. Where they are talking 100's of millions not 1000's !

[Nikked]

Kevin and Melinda no longer need one "do all" car in the family, Kev has his Hilux as a work hack and to tow the boat to the water on the weekend. Melinda has a Mazda 3 as the run about, dropping Michal at McDonald's for work, and teacher her sister to drive.

[BLUEYBA]

I think both Holden and Ford too the buying public for granted for too long. They were giving the people what they think we should have rather than giving us what we wanted in the Falcon and Commodore

[FGX-351]

Call me stubborn but regardless of how it all goes down, I'll never buy a damn camry!

[stevz]

There is evidence here right before our eyes - We are on a Ford forum yet it is plastered with Nissan ads. Go figure.

[Ducati888]

Free trade agreement is predominantly to blame. Our government has spent the last 20 years protecting the workers of Thailand and South East Asia at the expense of our own.

The car makers are also to blame. When the Laser was made in Brisbane it was a best seller, and as it happens was the way of the future. Ford discarded it when it became mediocre, and should have developed it and continued it. Imagine now in 2013 a Mazda 3 based Laser, being made here.

Even so, it would only be 3000 units per month because the market is so diluted across so many makes and models now. 30 years ago, there was only about ten choices. Now there's 70 odd.

[dannyxm]

Originally Posted by PlukaDuck

S

Simply the only problem with Australia going down the ****** shoot
is Australians

This,

We live in a society where we are keeping up with the Kardashians, not the Joneses.

Having a new Falcon or Cdore is not good enough.
Having a 3 bedroom house is not good enough.
Having a 50 inch tv is not good enough.
etc etc etc

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by BLUEYBA

I think both Holden and Ford too the buying public for granted for too long. They were giving the people what they think we should have rather than giving us what we wanted in the Falcon and Commodore

Well they've fixed that come 2016.

[mcnews]

This from a very intelligent and funny engineer I know at Bosch.

"I like my chosen profession, I like manufacturing, and I like cars. And I'd like to be able to keep making cars, as a country. But I can see it's not viable. I can see how difficult and hard many of us work to not even break even, unlike just about every one else I know in other engineering fields. There is simply no profit left. So what of the future? Luckily I don't have answer those questions and I have made the express professional choice to exclude myself from having to make hard choices, from having to lead. It's easier letting others do it if they want to...

Coincidentally we had a round to redundancies yesterday, loosing 3 heads from the 30 odd in our eng dept - about 10%. I'm off to the PG this morning to plan the future of vehicle testing with our 1 remaining full time test driver/test coordinator. How long will we even keep this test capacity, whatever is left of it? Anyway, I will dodge the hard questions and just make the jokes. I'm off to find info about training to be a barista, and check the latest plasma screen catalogues. It's all about service industries and cheap imported plasma screens form here forward :-) "

[superyob]

Originally Posted by PlukaDuck

SUPPLY AND DEMAND.
I f people stop buying foreign cars then the problem is fixed.
If people don't buy second hand foreign cars then people wont buy new because they have no resale value.
If people elected a decent government with balls .....then the problems fixed.
Don't blame the government because THE PEOPLE ELCTED IT

Simply the only problem with Australia going down the ****** shoot
is Australians

At a simplistic level this might be the case but I think that the issues run deeper. I think a shift in Australia's cultural values and the fragmentation of a basically European society into that of a multi-cultural society has a lot to do with it. For example, there are many ethnic groups that call Oz home,more so than say 20 years ago. However, it is not unreasonable to assume that they will buy a car from their ancestral home to maintain some sort of link with it. Also, look at any PS3/Xbox car games. What are the cars that handle the best on screen? The imports... And that is what many young people may be basing their purchase on. The Mitsoyota PZX rocketship could do fully sick drifts on screen, so obviously it will do that in real world conditions...

[RedHotGT]

What people seem to forget is that you are comparing a hugely different timeframe of when the Falcon/Commdore was sucessful, to today...

Let me take you back 15 years ago - when the Falcon and Commdore were selling quite well. I've selected two cars to compare to paint you a very blatantly obvious picture....
1998 Ford AU Forte Petrol Sedan - RRP $29,990
1998 BMW E46 328i Petrol Sedan - RRP $86,800
There is a $56k difference between the two cars... or roughly 3 times the price...
Also consider what your wage was in 1998, what your mortgage was in 1998 etc...
NOW - Fast forward to today:
2013 Ford FGII XT Petrol Sedan - RRP $37,235
2013 BMW 328i Petrol Sedan - RRP $68,900
Now there is only $30k difference in it, or roughly less than HALF the price difference... So the Beemer is now $20k cheaper (20% cheaper), and is JAM packed with stuff (8spd Auto, way better fuel economy, etc etc etc) and the Falcon has INCREASED in price by $9k (25% more expensive)...

Ok - so it's numbers and jargon etc... I know I know... but now think about it properly... The Falcon costs more (though I still reckon it's cheap for what you get), the BMW costs less (and is FULL of good bits), and the gap between the two is less than it has EVER been before...

So, more people are taking the plunge, borrowing more, and buying European built cars. And that is just ONE example, I'm sure if you compared the relative Benz, Audi, VW, you'd see a similar trend... and I haven't even touched on the Jap cars that are better now than they've ever been in the past as well...

So to answer the OP - when did the Falcon/Commodore lose it all?? Well they didn't really... Everyone else just caught up........

[johnydep]

Ford and Holden got lazy. They rested on past successes, customer loyalty and government hand outs.

Grace Collier -
ONLY $150 million a year will save Holden? Rubbish. The Holden Enterprise Agreement is the document that has utterly sunk Holden's prospects. It defies belief that someone in the company isn't being held to account for it.

Holden's management masks a union culture beyond most people's comprehension. Employment costs spiralled way beyond community standards long ago. Neither "pay freezes" nor more money will save Holden, but getting the Fair Work Commission to dissolve the agreement and put all workers on the award wage might be a start.

In 1991, the pre-enterprise bargaining award wage of a Holden entry level process worker was $462.80 a week. In 1992, Holden began enterprise bargaining and now a worker at that same classification level has a base rate of $1194.50 a week, a 158 per cent increase, or a compound increase of 4.4 per cent year on year for 22 years. Right now, base wage rates for process workers in the Holden enterprise agreement are in the $60,000 to $80,000 per year range and in recent times, "hardship payments" of $3750 were given to each worker.

The modern award for such workers mandates base rates in the $37,000 to $42,000 range. This means that before we add any of the shift penalties, loadings, 26 allowances and the added cost of productivity restrictions, Holden begins each working day paying its workforce almost double what it should. After you add in the other employment costs, I estimate Holden's workforce costs it somewhere close to triple the amount it should.

Many people who work at Holden don't actually work for Holden; they work for the union. Occupational health and safety people are given 10 days' paid time off a year to be trained by the union. Most companies do not allow unions to train their OH&S people because the knowledge is used to control the workplace to the benefit of the union.

Union delegates are also allowed up to 10 paid days a year for union training in how to be effective union delegates and two of these delegates are entitled to an extra Holden sponsorship of one paid month off to "further their industrial and/or leadership development".

Holden's rules on hiring casuals are shocking and unheard of in today's market. The agreement forbids Holden from hiring casuals except when a "short-term increase in workload, or other unusual circumstances occurs". If this situation arises Holden has to "consult and reach agreement" with the union. Further, "Engagement of the agreed number of casual personnel will be for the agreed specified tasks and the agreed specified periods." If any of this changes, Holden must get union agreement again. After three months of continuous full-time work a casual must be made permanent. It is impossible to run a business like this.

An ex-employee from Adelaide, on condition of anonymity, consented to an interview yesterday. He described the workforce as "over-managed", with one team leader for every six workers on the production line, when one for every 25 workers would suffice.

He said "some of us workers felt it wasn't necessary to get paid what we were getting paid to do the jobs we were doing", adding that their work is probably worth about "20 bucks an hour". A few years back, mates took redundancy packages in the order of "$280k plus". Workers are "like sheep" that blindly follow the union leadership. At induction, new workers are ushered into one-on-one meetings with the union rep who heavies them into joining. "It is made clear that if you don't join the union you will be sacked," he said. Union representatives "don't actually do any work for Holden", but rather make themselves full-time enforcers of union control.

He says workers are drug tested before hiring, but "only have to stay off it for a few weeks, get in the door and then you'll be right". Workers caught taking drugs or being drug-affected at work are allegedly put on a fully paid rehabilitation program, with special paid time off of about four weeks duration, before being let back into the workforce.

Australian workplaces have a zero tolerance for drug use, with instant dismissal the remedy, but at Holden "the union won't let the company sack" any workers caught dealing, taking or being on drugs. "If they did a random drug test tomorrow they'd probably have to sack 40 per cent of the workforce," he adds.

If the Holden scenario were playing out in a privately owned business, proper cost-cutting strategies would be used. If you have the will and can hire the skill, there are many ways to cut labour costs. The workers can be given a couple of years notice of significant wage drops and can receive lump sum payouts of entitlements to help bring down family debt.

Of course, these strategies are only ever used by business people who have no one else to bail them out. It seems Holden would rather leave the country than dissolve its enterprise agreement. The union thinks members are better off jobless than on award wages. Holden's fate seems sealed.

If Holden does leave, workers will receive the most generous redundancy benefits around. Holden says leaving will cost $600m. Most of this will go to staff payouts. The fellow interviewed agrees with my calculation: the average production-line worker will walk away with a redundancy package of between $300k-500k.

[nothin suss]

Choice

[Mighty Reds]

The falcon and commodore are the best they have ever been but the fact is big 4 door sedans aren't on as many shopping lists these days. Soccer mums drive 4wd's more than wagons, even sales reps seem to drive things like Klugers and Prado's now a domain the falcon and commodore owned.

[Jacko*]

In my opinion, the reason Falcons & commodores are no longer on top of the sales chart due to a few things.

Firstly perceptions of buyers have changed, this is mostly due to very good marketing by their imported counterparts & motoring journalists who seem to prefer foreign cars to our own, writing articles with such bias it would seem they were sponsored by an over seas manufacturer. People tend to believe the marketing hype and make choices accordingly.

Secondly when Ford & Holden were on top they failed to recognise the threat from their foreign competitors because the were to busy fighting each other. As a result they both failed to move with the market for a long time. It wasn't until their sales really dropped off that they recognized the need for change. For ford this was when they released the Territory, for Holden it was the Cruze. Both these models were meant to plug a hole in the market, but by the time they were released the SUV & small car market was already flooded with imports.

I think the government has had a part to play as well, firstly by removing import tariffs. This enabled the foreign car makers all the advantage they need to start with. Labour costs are much lower over seas, from this point Holden & Ford could never compete on price. Unlike much of the media I think the government supporting the local car industry has been a good thing. The money the put in is well spent when you take into account the number of people employed by the car industry & the benefit to the Australian economy. Sadly we will soon see many Australians effected by the job losses as Ford & Holden cease manufacturing here.

[XWGT]

There are lots of valid reasons above but the main one is that Ford, Holden and Toyota are GLOBAL organisations.

The result is, if you have an operation that is making sub par returns, move it to a region that will create acceptable returns.

There is no point manufacturing in Australia for zero return when you can move the manufacturing to a cheaper cost country, get the return up to 10%, and still achieve the same turnover and increased profits in Australia by making it an import only operation.

Its really basic stuff that's masked by a whole lot of emotive and misleading arguments.

ROI people. ROI

[Spammy]

Originally Posted by danny351

This,

We live in a society where we are keeping up with the Kardashians, not the Joneses.

Having a new Falcon or Cdore is not good enough.
Having a 3 bedroom house is not good enough.
Having a 50 inch tv is not good enough.
etc etc etc

All good points : if the government wants to make things better they should force people to live in a cardboard box, don't send your kids to school & uni (especially girls), TV and other relaxation is for homos.

World would be a better place if we all worked in salt mines and our pay was credited to Ford/Holden each week and we were "given" a new car every 3 years.

Where can I sign a petition to change Australia ? -- I love it when somebody else tells me how to live my life.

[mechanic]

30 years ago the average bloke couldn't afford air travel, now it's cheaper to fly and hire a car than drive a nice comfortable 6 cylinder car.
Also, remember all the protests against globalisation? Turns out the protesters were right.
We've entered into agreements to sell our natural resources for basically nothing to countries that can use them to manufacture products by paying nothing to employees and then we buy their stuff at huge markups.
When I worked as a Ford mechanic it wasn't uncommon to see cars with 3-400,000 klms on them, now 100,000 klms is trade in time and after talking to a German VW mechanic it will become common for turbo 4 cyl cars to be junked at the 100,000 klm mark.
Lots of factors contribute to the demise of Chrysler Ford and GMH, lets not forget that we no longer have a footwear clothing or textile industry either.
We lived for a long time with import duties protecting our goods but our marvellous politicians decided it's better to have no manufacturing in Australia and just be a big hole in the ground donating our resources to the exploding populations of countries overseas.
At the current rate of immigration we will soon be one of those countries, lets not forget that we hear from pollies their penchant for a BIG Australia.
Conveniently ignoring the fact that massive immigration has done nothing for the USA and UK, both financial basket cases with no manufacturing industries left.
Kids best get a good education these days because competition for lower paid jobs will be fierce.
Just my 2c worth [ maybe only worth 1c these days ]

[XR Martin]

For a nation with its own auto industry, we have the lowest auto import duty in the World.

Try importing a vehicle into Korea, Thailand or Japan.
Suddenly that $30k car becomes $60k or even $100k+

Most popular car in Japan is Japanese, most popular car in Germany is German, most popular car in France is French.
Most popular car in Australia? Japanese or Korean.

For whatever reason the Governments have had no interest in protecting our auto industry, which is the biggest factor in it all.