Will the Holden brand survive?

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Warrenk

Have a read of this link about GWM and their plans
https://www.caradvice.com.au/827648/...re-great-wall/

Yeah but sales were never really limited by supply, GWM needs more than that to increase sales.

[Trevor 57]

Maybe those rumours about Red Bull talking to BMW were a heads up

[MustangStevo63]

hi warren , the car in your avatar is? some sort of cobra i recall , cant remember but always loved them

[b0son]

Originally Posted by ozpacman

I really feel sorry for those who in the last 10 years or so have invested significant funds and put everything on the line to make a go of running a Holden dealership. The past few years must have been their worst nightmare.

The nightmare just get worse and worse for these guys...

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/news...ug/ar-BB106O4i

A Holden car dealership in South Australia had been on the brink of opening a state-of-the-art showroom when General Motors announced it was axing the brand... City Holden was expecting to open the new $6.5 million 'dealership of the future' on Railway Terrace at Mile End in May this year, they told The Advertiser.

What the hell were these guys thinking?

[Trevor 57]

Proves GM are **** blokes

[Warrenk]

Originally Posted by MustangStevo63

hi warren , the car in your avatar is? some sort of cobra i recall , cant remember but always loved them

It is a concept Cobra. I got my kit from a company called Copycat Cars at the Gold Coast. it uses a BA/BF Falcon for all the parts, in my case I used a BF2 XR8 manual(the falcon was only 12mths old before it was written off).

[Wretched]

Originally Posted by Trevor 57

Proves GM are **** blokes

Why is that?
Holden were losing sales hand over fist - their entire monthly sales barely resembled what Commodore was selling during VF2.

In addition GM are not exactly flowing in cash, they needed to stem the flow and it appeared RHD market was not making money for them so it was shutdown - in turn Holden as a GM brand.

Let's not forget, GM is a business and they need to make the decisions that will keep them afloat, whether or not you agree with them is beside the point. The execs have more data that would support that decision than we have access to.

[b0son]

may as well rename the thread to 'Will the GM brand survive'? profits trending down since 2016, and a pretty lacklustre product offering.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by Darren290

With Holden going, how long before Wheels and Motor magazine follow??

If that was the case it, would have happened 3 years ago. Cause they both hardly ever had anything Holden related anymore, cause they had nothing worthy of being tested. Only recent thing was the Camaro and it's a Chev, not a Holden.

Believe it or not, having Holdens featured means nothing for most readers. Some people just like cars in general and couldn't give 2 ****es if Holden cars were inside the mag or not.

I still buy Wheels every month wether there is a Ford inside it or not, because I like to follow what is happening with the auto industry as a whole.

[BENT_8]

Originally Posted by b0son

The nightmare just get worse and worse for these guys...

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/news...ug/ar-BB106O4i



What the hell were these guys thinking?

Agreed, as if you'd invest that sort of money in new premises when the bleeding obvious was right there in your monthly figures, Holden has been in freefall since late 2017 and anyone with half a brain that looked at the bread and butter seller being discontinued from as far back as 2013 could see there was little reason to start planning big spending.

No doubt they'll rebrand and all will be well, but it makes for a sensational story in the meantime.

[mick taylor]

Originally Posted by prydey

while everyone likes to point fingers and find someone to blame, the reality of the situation often gets forgotten.

Is there another island, with the population size of australia, with an automotive manufacturing industry?

once globalisation started a couple of decades ago, it was going to become increasingly difficult to maintain an industry in this country even with support from within. Being surrounded by water has logistical challenges that other manufacturing countries, even the smaller ones, just don't have. Not to mention the population sizes are considerably larger in other manufacturing countries so demand is higher.

The reality is, the manufacturing industry in australia probably lasted about 10years longer than it should have.

Fact is that Australia never could of had a car industry like it did even before 1948, if Australia did not have Tariffs and that's a fact.
The Tariffs propped up our industry's take them away and the fact is that they would die, be it from 1949 on, it would of died in fact.

The main thing that hammers Australia and the USA is the currency value of Asia is so low that we can not compete with that or their lack of regulations as to workers entitlements and all.

As such we need tariffs or you are a dead duck in the water, Trump knows this and has chosen for the USA to swim and the Left and far right really wealthy people want the Nation to sink and die, so the government can walk all over the people with their love of the dictatorship Marxism Socialist so they can exploit you. the extreme rich are all about exploitation and so are the far left as they want only to dominate over all like the Cretins that they truly are.

If that moron Obama never just went and printed money like a total fool to just make himself look good in the eyes of the majority of fools, we could of exported the VE-F Commodore to the USA ect as that's why they designed the bloody car so big. so when USA was printing money this increased our dollar in fact. if our dollar was low as it is now we could of exported well as Holden were predicting to sell 50% of Commodores to the USA, as that was the game plan for the VE.

[ebv8]

https://www.caradvice.com.au/827940/holden-discounts-2/

big discounts if this is true
shame they don't sell anything in manual

[Vormund]

I’ll definitely be taking a look. If I can get a commodore VXR for a reasonable price I may bite. Just run it until it falls apart.

(Insert joke about it lasting a year here)

[Trevor 57]

Originally Posted by Wretched

Why is that?.

throwing their loyal dealers under the bus

(which is what my reference was to - but you might have missed that as I didn't 'quote')

[Wretched]

Originally Posted by Trevor 57

throwing their loyal dealers under the bus

(which is what my reference was to - but you might have missed that as I didn't 'quote')

If GM is exiting out of RHD markets due dismal sales, what products would Holden dealers sell?
In addition, if the RHD market for GM is so poor, then really those dealers would have been feeling the heat long a go. Many of them diversify into other brands.

[ebv8]

Originally Posted by Wretched

If GM is exiting out of RHD markets due dismal sales, what products would Holden dealers sell?
In addition, if the RHD market for GM is so poor, then really those dealers would have been feeling the heat long a go. Many of them diversify into other brands.

Great Wall/Havel

great wall will have the colarado and the havel are on par with the quality of the holden SUV's anyway

[hayseed]

Originally Posted by ebv8

https://www.caradvice.com.au/827940/holden-discounts-2/

big discounts if this is true
shame they don't sell anything in manual

So much for residual values.........!!!!

[Syndrome]

Although I was expecting the Holden brand to be euthanised, what shocked me about Monday's announcement was that GM wasn't planning to replace it with the Chevrolet brand (as a lot of us predicted), but to vacate the Australian market altogether. That is just weak.

[prydey]

Originally Posted by Syndrome

Although I was expecting the Holden brand to be euthanised, what shocked me about Monday's announcement was that GM wasn't planning to replace it with the Chevrolet brand (as a lot of us predicted), but to vacate the Australian market altogether. That is just weak.

They are vacating RHD. We are a RHD country. They won't be selling cars to suit.

Seems a lot have glossed over that fact and made this all about Holden and Australia.

[naddis01]

Originally Posted by ebv8

Great Wall/Havel

great wall will have the colarado and the havel are on par with the quality of the holden SUV's anyway

Great Wall won't have the Colorado. They are about to release their own new ute - the Cannon. Supposedly benchmarked against the Hilux/Ranger.

[blueoval]

Originally Posted by naddis01

Great Wall won't have the Colorado. They are about to release their own new ute - the Cannon. Supposedly benchmarked against the Hilux/Ranger.

image

Good luck getting that out of China to Australia in the foreseeable future

[jpd80]

Interesting that Ford confirms the existence of proposals for V8 Ranger Raptor and RHD F150
right when Everyone is talking about the demise of Holden, reassuring people that Ford isn't next?

[danzvtil]

Originally Posted by b0son

The nightmare just get worse and worse for these guys...

https://www.msn.com/en-au/money/news...ug/ar-BB106O4i



What the hell were these guys thinking?

As soon as I heard city HOLDEN were rebuilding, I never thought a new HOLDEN would leave the new premises.
Their hand was forced as the CBD premises were small and split across laneways, very hard to upgrade to current standards. When HOLDEN boned nearby Metro Holden, they would have made city’s renewal conditional on a new premises, which had been holdens focus for the last few years. The insane amount of money the site was worth to developers sealed the deal.
The old metro site (2kms down the road)is now a Jeep and GW/Haval dealership, so I reckon MG would rock up with a bag of cash, as Hyundai/ Kia have largish dealers nearby already.
I guess time will tell.
And another thing, the closure announcement made mention of compensation to dealers, I’d bet my house on the fact that the dealers will name a price and GM will pay it no matter how high. They won’t want to spend years in court fighting, they just want the problem to go away.

[MITCHAY]

We knew it was coming but it is still something else to see the headline in the breaking news about the final nail being fully in the coffin. There are many reasons which are well known so I won't go over it.

It is quite funny the situation with the AUD and how it has flipped between the decision to kill the home made Commodore and the imported one. Gone from roughly $1USD back down to $0.67USD

What I find hard to understand is how prominent the RHD has been argued as a factor in this decision. Other manufacturers are able to do this including Ford.

Holden developed a platform that delivered a coupe, sedan, ute, wagon, and LWB in both LHD and RHD from factory on the **** end of the world. Those cars were the best we had.

Given Ford built the Territory on the Falcon platform I would like to think the same could have been achieved too. I'm not sure that's the case but it would make sense to me.

The cars GM dished up here were rebadged crap and have been for a long time with few exceptions.

If only they were able to come up with a volume selling model or two, Holden may still exist and perhaps we might still have the Commodore.

[jgmdat]

Article in Car and Driver says GM want to concentrate on electric vehicles.

[Sprintey]

12K Astra, wow, could that be true? This is what a firesale looks like.

Interview with GM Management before the fall:

https://www.caradvice.com.au/382691/...-says-gm-exec/

It's a shocking interview as for my ear, a firm dictating what their customers will have to like. Surely a no-no in business. As for his comments on V8s, I think he's wrong here too: V8s will continue to sell (eg, RAM, Ranger Raptor) until everything gets swept away by electric. What has happened is that passenger cars of every engine type have been destroyed - it wasn't whether or not they had a V8. Sadly, Holden got destroyed sooner. The only refuge has been dual cabs, SUVs (well done, Mitsubishi, who turned to these first and then priced for volume).

[Dr Smith]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Interesting that Ford confirms the existence of proposals for V8 Ranger Raptor and RHD F150
right when Everyone is talking about the demise of Holden, reassuring people that Ford isn't next?

Maybe Ford has finally learnt it's OK to talk about "maybe's" instead of denying everything....It's always surprised me how far in advance the US brands in NA show off their new models ahead of actual onsale dates and yet here it's been like pulling wisdom teeth.

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by Trevor 57

throwing their loyal dealers under the bus

(which is what my reference was to - but you might have missed that as I didn't 'quote')

Remember it is dog eat dog world when it comes down to business, no such thing loyalty in this day and age or are you living in La La land believing in fairies.


OBTW GM did say they will pay redundancies to workers and compensate the dealerships.

[Sprintey]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kryaTJNMgE

What great imagery, great looking product too. RIP

[cheap]

Massive fire sale!

News suggests $17,000 off some models.

Pity the buggers who bought something last week/month - they’ve taken an extraordinarily hit.