Holden Apollo Reviews

The first Holden small car in history turns 60 – and it's not what you think it is!

What is the fastest P-plate legal car in Australia? There’s no hard and fast winner when it comes to what is the fastest legal p-plate car, as each state has differing rules about what is allowed.

Not all Holden models disappeared when we thought they did. During the brand’s 72-year lifespan as “Australia’s Own”, a handful continued to exist elsewhere, even after their Australian-market production ceased. That's why we're highlighting the Holdens that were engineered and/or made in Australia at some point, but later continued on in other countries for a little longer.

There's a reason why some nameplates have been around for so long. Many are the pioneering vehicle's in their respective segments, still dominating sales as they did 50, 60, and in some cases, even 70 years ago.

Ford is rolling out a new and improved Ranger divvy van for Victoria Police that builds on the success achieved with the earlier-generation PX III model back in 2021.

Holden may be gone, but – as Opel/Vauxhall’s recently-announced Frontera reminds us – it’s clear that a handful of the old names survive. They grace other, inevitably newer models from both within and beyond the broader GM family that once, of course, also included Holden. What do they look like today? Would fans of their Australian namesakes even recognise any sort of connection?

New-vehicle manufacturing will never return to Australia – at least not as we knew it. Setting up full-scale production of a new car – as we saw with the Holden Commodore or Ford Territory – would be a $2 billion exercise today, says Engineering Director and Premcar partner Bernie Quinn. Having been involved with Ford’s FPV program and Premcar’s latest remanufacturing operation producing Australian-focused off-road capable Nissan Navara and Patrol Warriors, Quinn is intimately aware of the challenges.When CarsGuide asked about the viability of a full-on new-vehicle program, Quinn summed it up simply: “That’s not where the future lies. That would be awesome, but I just don’t think that’s going to happen.“What we are proposing – and what we’re doing – is secondary manufacturing. Taking global products which have been manufactured in low-cost countries, like Thailand, and adapting those to the Australian market. “There’s no reason why that can’t apply to EVs. And there’s no reason why that couldn’t apply to an EV conversion of a dual-cab ute, for example,” says Quinn.You might have spotted the ROEV project that had aspirations of taking HiLuxes and Rangers and converting them to electric vehicles – Premcar was involved on the engineering side. “We were working with ROEV but they’ve since changed their strategy and they’re not going to go ahead with that conversion.”ROEV has pivoted into artificial intelligence-driven software that can predict the most efficient vehicle type and powertrain for certain use cases. But Bernie still sees a future in localisation projects.“There’s 20,000 dual-cab utes in the Pilbara. The companies that work in the mining industry in the Pilbara have ESG requirements – corporate requirements – that are beyond government legislation.“So if they want to say ‘we’ve got to be all-electric by 2030’, well, there’s no vehicle that can do that. How would you service that market? Well, you might do an EV conversion. That’s what that project was all about,” explains Quinn. He notes that it would cost “a few million” to service that demand, far less than the $2 billion to engineer and produce a ground-up vehicle here. Only LDV offers a basic electric ute in Australia with manufacturers like Toyota and Ford dragging their heels on this type of vehicle. And when Australian vehicle manufacturing ended for good in October 2017 with the final Holden Commodore ‘VF II’ the people with knowledge didn’t necessarily disappear from the scene. Many remain here, now being employed by companies such as Premcar, Walkinshaw and RMA automotive to work on conversions, upgrades and localisation programs.Premcar has delivered 10,000 Warriors since 2018, while EV ute conversions have gone a little quiet, although SEA electric is still around.In simple terms, Australian manufacturing isn’t dead. The future just looks very different to Holden Commodores and Ford Falcons.

Is this what next year’s Holden Commodore would be if General Motors hadn’t pulled the plug in 2020?

The Chevrolet S10 ute - a Brazilian-built relative to the Holden Colorado once sold in Australia - has been updated for its home market, giving us a look at how the ute could have looked in 2024 here.

It’s been more than four years since February 2020 when Holden announced it would shut its doors in Australia, and for Lion-badged die-hards there’s still some hurt - but General Motors is rebuilding, and there’s a lot of optimism around the future.