Holden Commodore 2018 awarded five-star safety rating

The Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP) has awarded Holden's new imported ZB Commodore with a five-star crash safety rating for all variants available across Australia and New Zealand.

ANCAP’s testing and scoring system has been overhauled for 2018, and the new German-built Commodore is the first vehicle to be trialed under the new regime.

ANCAP chief executive James Goodwin praised the Commodore’s result and said the new version offered safety features not found on the Australian-built VF that went out of production in October last year.

“The vehicle scored well, achieving solid results across all areas of assessment,” he said.

“Australian families and fleet buyers have long regarded the Commodore as a trusted local choice and the shift to overseas supply has further enhanced the model’s safety credentials.

Dual frontal, side chest and side head-protecting airbags are standard on all ZB Commodore variants.

“This next-generation Commodore includes safety assist technologies not seen in its locally produced predecessor, with standard-fit features such as autonomous emergency braking and active lane-keep assist.”

The ZB Commodore shares its structure with Opel/Vauxhall’s Insignia, supplied to Europe, and ANCAP suggests the Holden-badged version offers comparable safety performance.

A raft of changes to the independent vehicle safety authority were implemented this year to more closely align its scoring and testing system with that of Euro NCAP.

The Commodore’s five-star ANCAP rating was based on testing conducted by Euro NCAP on the Opel Insignia Grand Sport 1.6CDTi turbo-diesel liftback in 2017, with the Holden scoring strongly across the four key areas of assessment.

The Commodore achieved a 93 per cent score in the Adult Occupant Protection assessment, 85 per cent in Child Occupant Protection, 78 per cent in Pedestrian Protection and 77 per cent in Safety Assist.

In all frontal and side crash tests the vehicle showed ‘good’ or ‘adequate’ results for adult and child passenger protection, though the 10-year old child dummy indicated ‘marginal’ protection to the neck. 

Pedestrian protection tests also showed ‘good’ or ‘adequate’ results, although pelvis protection results were ‘mixed’.

Dual frontal, side chest and side head-protecting airbags are standard on all ZB Commodore variants, so too is auto emergency braking and lane departure warning with active lane-keep assistance.

The Commodore rolls into Australian dealerships later this month and ranges in price from $33,690 to $55,990.

Does the Commodore’s top safety result make the new imported version more appealing? Tell us what you think in the comments below.