Here’s a video history of Holden, Australia’s own car, courtesy of Australia’s own television network, ABC.
This video history comes to us courtesy of ABC. No, not the American Broadcasting Corporation but rather the Australian Broadcasting Corporation—same initials and business, but on the other side of the world. (The two networks are not related.) When Holden finally called it quits for good in February of this year, the public television network’s news division responded with this sound general history of the company, which includes a fairly stated overview of the automaker’s eventual decline.
While Holden is a division of General Motors, an American corporation, Australians fondly looked upon the company as a local institution. In part, maybe that’s because the company was originally founded back in 1856 by James A. Holden, who opened a saddlery in Adelaide. Holden automobiles were marketed under the tagline, “Australia’s Own Car,” and car buyers took it to heart. And while the vehicles used a medley of Opel, Vauxhall, Isuzu, and American GM designs and components, they had their own distinct flavor as well, for example in their locally produced six-cylinder and V8 engines. These engines formed the basis for the Australian hot rodding community, much like the Ford flathead and Chevy small-block V8s in the USA.
While this video history really doesn’t do the automaker justice, it’s a decent start for Americans hoping to learn more about GM’s Australian cousin. There’s a panel discussion toward the end that includes Mark Skaife, hero of the Australian V8 Supercar series and a Holden stalwart. Here you will find a fond but fairly dry-eyed assessment of the carmaker’s decline and fall. We’re not experts on the Australian market, but for us the question could be as simple as this: Can a nation of just 25 million people support a native auto industry without significant subsidies? It would appear that the answer is no, unfortunately. Video follows.
There is absolutely no possible way to understand these cars, or the way they are ingrained into the Australian psyche unless you have spent time in ‘this wide brown land’ …no doubt some will try…
Holden, Ford and Toyota were backed into a corner with the withdrawal of subsidies. 30% was too much but 10-15% was required. And the unions shot themselves in the foot by pricing themselves out of a job.
Though everyone was waffling crap about how good Euro cars were, or Japanese ones. The Euro cars are becoming very unpopular as they were not as good!!
GM too being in the bankruptcy courts in the US too was a major problem. They had too much crap and inflicted it upon us. The ZB Opeldore being Australias biggest lemon.
Currently with the AUD being about 60c US we would be viable.
As for the Stupidcars being the same as a showroom car,, sorry only a vague idea of the production car being chopped and channeled and using a 70s engine base. Ford and Holden,, both in effect Boss 302s