I think it's a shame, because I think Holden have turned the Commodore into quite a nice car. Unfortunately, like a vast majority of Australians, it's simply not a car that I want to buy.

I believe there are two co-conspirators who need to share the blame for Holden's demise.

Primarily, I believe it is the unions who have made Australian manufacturing too expensive to be competitive - their members were doing very well while it lasted, but how well will they do when it's all over? Outstanding Performance in the Lack of Vision category...

GM is the other major culprit. Their US-centric management doesn't understand what the non-US world wants. The Australian market isn't large enough to support a large rear drive family car, but BMW and Mercedes seem to do OK globally - why can't GM? Because they expect the rest of the world to buy what America buys from them, and haven't yet figured out that even Americans are turning away from Detroit and embracing foreign cars. I believe Holden have developed a platform (Commodore) that could be globally competitive - if GM had the vision - but because they don't expect it to sell well in the US, they don't expect it to sell well anywhere else. To be fair, the cost of manufacturing here doesn't help (see above), but it's still a performance worthy of Honourable Mention in the Lack of Vision category.

While I'm whingeing, what have they done with the Cruze? The Mazda 3 / Toyota Corolla category is what Australians want, but Holden couldn't make the Cruze compete - not even with a "Buy Australian" advantage. When I bought my Golf, I didn't particularly want a Golf - I wanted a Golf sized diesel (that wasn't a Ford...)

My list came down to Golf, Mazda 3, Hyundai i30, and Cruze:

  • i30 was competent, but completely uninspiring, and sold (by the sales staff) as cheap. They couldn't understand why I was asking about options that would increase the price, much less tell me about them - but I digress.
  • The Mazda 3 was in runout, and there were only two left in the country - not in Adelaide, and I would have to sign for one without a test drive.
  • Holden said they couldn't supply a diesel Cruze for 6 months - not even to drive. They couldn't get engines.
  • Volkswagen had more choice, a range of vehicles to test drive, and offered me a cancelled order at a discount that I couldn't go past.


One of the few times an Australian-built car was on my list, and they crossed themselves off.

I'm disappointed that Holden is going, but I think it was inevitable.