Holden icon or just con?

A dying Sydney newspaper this week rather cleverly headlined their coverage of the GM humiliation as “Government Motors Holden”.

Not bad that. A flash of the old cleverness.

Yeah, yeah, yeah - everyone’s cock-a-hoop that Holden’s remaining 6500 workers, its dealer network, and the thousands whose livelihoods are contingent on this brand, are not going to be out of work. For now at least …

The manufacture of cars badged Holden – whether it’s an essentially 20th century six cylinder sedan bought mainly by fleets or a re-badged Daewoo – means the marque remains as firmly clamped to the breast of subsidy as a newborn to its mummy.

The federal Government has committed $6.2 billion of your and my money to succouring local car makers. It’s paying Holden to build the globally-engineered, four-cylinder car (and already endlessly spruiked) Cruze here from next year.

So it had better be bloody good.

It had, in fact – given that Holden has lost $300 million in recent years – be better than the Mazda3.

That’s the benchmark for sub-$30K car quality. As the May sales figures showed yet again, it’s the car on which Australians spend their own money

Yes, the ever declining Commodore sold 3683 to the 3’s 3038 – but not one of the Mazda’s sales was to fleets, without which Holden’s scarcely overtaxed production lines would be barely ticking over. Nor can Holden continue to rely on the approximately 75 per cent of bung ’em at out a bargain price fleet orders - not given the haste with which they shed value.

So the only question is if Holden is to justify the continued injection of funds from people who really don’t want to buy them, is this: will the Cruze be good enough to trouble the Mazda3?

Because if it’s just another anodyne re-badge job – if it’s just another Barina, Viva or Epica – you can officially remove that “i” from icon.