Holden Commodore News

THE Holden Commodore has made a surprising recovery in the March sales race with a staggering 85 per cent sales increase compared with the same month the prior year -- narrowly missing a place on the podium as the nation’s fourth most popular car.Official figures released today show it was the Commodore’s third-best monthly sales tally since the new VF model went on sale 10 months ago, as the Holden brand overall posted a 19 per cent sales surge -- the strongest growth of any Top 10 brand and the seventh month in a row it has outpaced the market.However, the sharp percentage increases are largely due to the Commodore posting its second-lowest monthly result ever in March last year (1606 sales). The Commodore’s tally for March this year of 2967 sales is still down compared with the 2012 figure of about 3200 deliveries.But the Commodore’s old arch rival, the Ford Falcon, continued to rank well outside the Top 10, with just 641 deliveries. The Cruze small car that is built alongside the Commodore had a tough run, with sales down 30 per cent on the same month last year -- about half the sales rate as the same month just two years ago.March is the typically the second-biggest month for new-car sales as the Japanese brands have a surge in the lead-up to the end of the Japanese financial year, which closed on March 31. The sharp discounting prompts also the non-Japanese brands to compete.Last year’s top-selling car, the Toyota Corolla, led the March sales race -- but the Mazda3 small car, which was the market leader in January and February, still leads the year-to-date tally. The third-placed Toyota HiLux ute again squeezed the Commodore off the podium in March. But the Commodore still managed to outsell the popular Hyundai i30, Ford Ranger ute and Toyota Camry sedan.The Commodore also proved more popular than the updated Mazda CX-5 and Toyota RAV4 SUVs, which ranked just inside the Top 10 sellers list for March. The official figures show the new-car market is beginning to make a recovery after a downturn in January and February. Sales in March were down by just 0.1 per cent, to 97,267 deliveries, while sales in the first three months combined are down by 2.4 per cent.But the downturn has been exaggerated by Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi, which have all posted massive sales slowdowns for the first three months of this year, likely because their dealer networks are still clearing cars that were declared as sold in 2013.This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling

HOLDEN has built the 50,000th version of the new Commodore after its first 10 months of production, as demand for the homegrown hero ramps up after hitting an all-time low last year. But the company isn’t popping champagne corks just yet: at its peak 10 years ago the company reached the same manufacturing milestone in a little more than three months.Holden has built 50,000 VF Commodore sedans, wagons, utes and Caprice limousines over the past 10 months, most of which have been sold domestically. The 50,000th car is a silver Commodore SV6 sedan which is going to a private customer in Lansvale in Sydney’s south-west.About 4000 of the 50,000 cars have been exported, primarily to North America, where the Caprice is sold as a police car and the V8 Commodore sedan is sold as the Chevrolet SS. At its peak, Holden exported 60,500 cars in 2005 alone.“The VF is quite simply the best quality car Holden has ever built, and to see the 50,000th one roll off the line is a milestone everyone is very proud of,” said Holden’s executive director of manufacturing, Richard Phillips in a media statement.
Holden said it was unfair to compare the time it took to reach today’s milestone with earlier ones because the new-car market has changed dramatically over the past decade. “It’s a reflection of the unprecedented competition in the market,” said Holden spokesman Sean Poppitt.Last year the top-selling car, the Toyota Corolla, led the market with 43,500 sales. In 1998 the Commodore topped the charts with 94,500 sales. Holden has now sold more than 3 million Commodores in Australia since 1978, but has built more than 7 million cars locally since 1948.Holden plans to shut its car manufacturing facility in Elizabeth, South Australia, no later than 2017, when it will become an import-only brand. Ford is due to close its Broadmeadows and Geelong factories in 2016 and Toyota is due to shutter its Altona facility the same year as Holden.Holden milestones1 millionth Holden: EJ Special, Oct 19622 millionth Holden: HK Kingswood, March 19693 millionth Holden: HQ KIngswood, June 19744 millionth Holden: VC Commodore, June 19815 millionth Holden: VN Calais, August 19906 millionth Holden: VX Commodore SS, June 20017 millionth Holden: VE Commodore, Aug 200850,000th VF Commodore: March 2014This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling 

Want to be a crash test dummy and live to tell the tale? A temporary showroom in Sydney's CBD is giving people the chance to get behind the wheel and crash a car -and then go back in time to crash one from the 1980s to compare the difference.One of the active displays invites people to wear a 3D mask and get behind the wheel of a brand-new Holden Commodore which crashes - virtually - into a barrier at the same speed crash tests are conducted. The system then resets and the same stunt is done in a 1982 Commodore, with catastrophic results.The Crashed Car Showroom by NRMA Insurance in York Street Sydney is open free to the public for the next 10 days.The project is designed to demonstrate the significant improvements in car safety over the past three decades, in addition to airbags and stronger body structures. A study by NRMA Insurance found most drivers don't know the type of safety features in their cars."A lot of people say safety is important when choosing a car, but in reality only 1 in 10 know what safety features are available and what they actually do," said Robert McDonald, the research manager for NRMA Insurance.The survey found most people could only name seatbelts and brakes as the safety features on their car.Most new cars sold today have at least six airbags and stability control (a system which temporarily cuts engine power and applies the brakes if it detects a skid in a corner) while an increasing number of family cars are equipped with rear-view cameras, parking sensors and radars that warn of cross-traffic when you're reversing.One of the safest cars in the world, the Volvo V40 hatch, even has an airbag to protect pedestrians, which automatically pops up between the bonnet and the windscreen.The latest Census figures show the average age of cars in Australia has fallen to below 10 years (to 9.9 years) for the first time since records were kept, however this figure is still higher than other developed countries. The average age of motor vehicles in Japan, the UK, and North America is between six and eight years.Newer cars with more safety features are believed to be one of the hidden contributors to Australia recording the lowest road toll in 89 years in 2013.This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling 

ONE of Holden's top selling family cars has unwittingly been disadvantaged by special conditions in the Free Trade Agreement with South Korea that were intended to help the struggling company -- in effect adding up $1500 to the cost of one of its most popular vehicles.Under the proposal, the removal of the 5 per cent import tariff will initially not apply to vehicles with six-cylinder engines -- a move the Federal Government says is designed to protect local car makers as they wind-down their manufacturing facilities.But Holden is the biggest importer of V6 cars from South Korea. Last year Holden sold more than 10,000 V6-powered Captiva SUVs and it was the company's third-biggest selling model behind the locally-made Commodore and Cruze.The policy faux-pas is likely to hurt Holden more than the South Korean brands. Hyundai no longer imports a V6 car and its sister company Kia sells only a small number of V6 versions of its Sorento SUV and Carnival people mover.The Captiva V6 typically sells for between $30,000 and $40,000 and the 5 per cent import tariff added to the wholesale cost of the car is estimated to be up to $1500 on dearer models.Despite the unexpected setback Holden insists it is happy with the Free Trade Agreement; seven of its 11 vehicles come from South Korea and two of the 11 come from Thailand, which has had a Free Trade Agreement with Australia since 2010.A statement from Holden said: "Holden imports several car models and various parts from (South) Korea and exports engines from our Port Melbourne plant. While we have only just started analysing the details of the FTA, our first look suggests it will be good for our business."While the removal of the 5 per cent import tariff on cars from South Korea is expected to start from next year, six-cylinder and V8 cars will be excluded from the free trade deal for a further three years until Toyota, Holden and Ford shut their Australian factories.All three local manufacturers currently produce six-cylinder cars, although Toyota, Ford and Holden also produce four-cylinder vehicles and Ford and Holden also produce V8s. However, the exemption of V8 vehicles in the Free Trade Agreement is unusual given that there are no V8 cars made in South Korea for right-hand-drive markets such as Australia.This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowling 

The death of Fast And Furious star Paul Walker once again threw the whole street racing underworld into the spotlight. But the real fast car culture is a long way from the movies.He sports a pair of geeky thin-rimmed glasses. His Ikea wardrobe is bulging from a collection of nerdy IT-styled polo shirts. His beard is well-groomed; his hands wonderfully soft. He is as clean cut as any Sunday school teacher.But Ben McNeil is not the guy you pull up beside at the traffic lights and rev your little tricked Commodore SS engine at. Firstly, he knows better. He'll just let you plant your foot and scream away at the sight of green and bring yourself to the attention of the constabulary.Secondly, he would give you a flogging - if he wanted to.The 26-year-old tech-head is part of something rather odd happening at the now-booming Sydney Dragway, amid the usual plume of acrid smoke, wafts of nitrous oxide, and vehicles frequently sideways. Nothing odd about the souped-up streetworthy cars toeing the rubber-littered start line - those four-cylinder pocket rockets inspired by the Fast And Furious film franchise, the supercharged Commodores, the batty old Datsuns decked out with a rocking new block.Kind of looks like a typical suburban drag race event. But check under the helmets. Among the 200 blokes about to send their cars hurtling down the quarter-mile strip on Wednesday night are high-school teachers,successful entrepreneurs, corporates, and cashed-up IT professionals. In this world of drag racing, vilified as a bogan's paradise, McNeil is a stereotype smasher.This is his first run in his Toyota 86 at Race 4 Real, a race and burnout meet at Eastern Creek that gives any rev-head a chance to test out their wheels. All you need is a helmet. And trousers.This is a popular weekly event that saves lives, according to the dragway's CEO Graham Elliot - giving those with a need for speed a chance to legally blow off some steam and race their mates, away from the perils of a suburban street or parking lot.This is the first meet back at the track since exalted Fast And Furious actor Paul Walker died in a fiery crash in California. He is a venerable topic of conversation on this night, but not a reason to slow down - even for this self-professed, calculated nerd.'I'm in IT, isn't that obvious? But I've always been into cars," McNeil said. 'Motorbikes and cars are all my colleagues think about. Funnily enough, this is my daily car.'I have a track car. It's a Subaru Liberty. I'm kind of doing it backwards, given I've got a two-door sports car as my daily and a four-door family car as the track car." His mate Andy Chisholm enticed him to give his 'daily car" a squirt on the drag strip.Chisholm is another stereotype smasher, he being a boys high-school English teacher. His Mitsubishi Evo that he usually races next door on the Eastern Creek circuit has been running 13 seconds on this night, keeping the WRX drivers on their toes. Suffice to say, he sometimes struggles to keep his classroom on topic. "They quite approve of my hobby," he said.He also struggles with straight lines, given that his red rocket should be running 12 seconds, and is, well, not. 'I do circuit racing mainly.Driving in a straight line, it's hard, man," he laughed. "Give me some corners." While most of the 200 drivers are just trying to beat their personal best times and entertain the crowd, James Cannavo is trying to stay on the ground.Tucked away in the shiny cockpit of his Nissan Skyline, this Denham Court small-business owner has what every lad who forked out $55 to race tonight wants - a 10-second car, the expensive quest of a burgeoning breed who watched Fast And Furious on the big screen and had a moment.Actually, Cannavo's Skyline is not a 10-second car. It's a 9-second car: one of the fastest roadworthy vehicles in Australia. It even has a parachute."I built the engine myself. It has well over 1100 horsepower at the tyres. In the stages of developing this car, I've probably left behind $130k. It is well worth it," he said. He doesn't use nitrous oxide, or NOS, the famed gas glorified in the Hollywood blockbuster. Says it's cheating.Tonight there are eight cars sucking in NOS, giving their four-wheeled weapons some added poke when the foot is flat. Daniel Dona, a Parramatta real estate agent, is another novice attempting his maiden run on the drag strip.Dressed in a hipster cardigan, he stands beside his $70,000 WRX STi and admits to being wonderfully addicted. He hasn't even raced yet, but has a 'long list of parts ready to go ... Just waiting for the bank account to respond accordingly".Therefore he can't afford any speeding tickets. "You just can't get away with street racing anymore, there are so many more cops patrolling, so we just come down here to give it a squirt and get it out of our systems," he said.Not all cars here are the latest high-powered models loaded with all the tricks in the box. That's the beauty of nights like this. It's a great leveller, on the social scale.Menai brothers Josh and Michael Lawrie are the backyard tinkerers; two 20-something lads as genuine and earnest as they come. It's the relationships forged under the bonnet that brings them back week after week. It's not all about speed."You can go and buy a piece of crap car and build it up with your friends and then race it. You build bonds, you build friendships and you are helping each other out on mate's rates," Josh said.Case in point, on the issue of mate's rates: When Josh is not sending his Commodore SS down the straight track, he is sideways in the rough-and-tumble world of drift racing. It kind of helps that brother Michael is a panel beater.Michael drives a less-than-polished 1984 Corolla which he spent six days gutting and dropping a twin cam 4AGE engine under the hood. He says there is more satisfaction building something special yourself, rather than getting the latest rocket off the showroom floor. Down the line is Jose Rovira, a 43-year-old father of two racing his Mazda 3 turbo. He turns up "to keep myself occupied" - and to teach his son a lesson. 

The Corolla was finally crowned Australia's favourite car in 2013 after 46 years in the market -- but you won't hear about it from Toyota. The car giant, which has been the overall market leader for 11 years in a row and 17 years since 1991 but never had the top-selling vehicle, is going to follow Mazda's lead by not advertising the Corolla's sales success."There are no plans at this stage," said Toyota Australia executive director of sales and marketing, Tony Cramb, when asked if the company would advertise the Corolla's historic win.Mazda also gave us the silent treatment when its Mazda3 small car took top sales honours in 2011 and 2012. It is suspected Mazda didn't want to boast that it ended the iconic Holden Commodore's record 15-year winning streak.But it turns out both Toyota and Mazda are wary of their success. Insiders from both companies admit popularity can work against them if they cars are seen as being everywhere. "People want to be seen to be driving something different, not be part of the pack," said one insider.Mazda was also keen to distance itself from the Corolla, which has a reputation for blandness because older models were better known for their reliability than their current styling pizazz.However, it may come as a shock to many Mazda buyers but more Mazda3 small cars were sold in Australia in the past three years than the Corolla. Figures from the car makers show that only 40 per cent of Corollas are bought by private buyers, compared to more than 80 per cent of Mazda3s.Toyota is only the fourth brand in 60 years to win the Australian new-car sales race; the others being Mazda, Holden and Ford. It was the third year in a row Japanese cars have led the Australian car market; locally-made models have been the top sellers since WWI, say automotive historians.The Corolla is the world's biggest selling car, with more than 40 million on the road worldwide, including more than 1.25 million delivered in Australia since 1967.The Corolla was built in Australia from 1968 to 1999, becoming the first Toyota ever assembled outside Japan, but production ended because it became too costly to build small cars locally. The model is now made in 15 factories in 14 countries including Japan, Canada, South America, Turkey, Pakistan, Venezuela, Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil, Taiwan, India, and two factories in China.The Corolla won the 2013 new-car sales race after swapping the monthly sales lead three times with reigning champion the Mazda3 – the Mazda led the first three months of the year before the Corolla landed its first win for 2013 in April, and then led the year-to-date tally for the first time in June. In the end, the Corolla was the top selling car for eight months of the year, including the last four in a row.Incredibly, it was only the Corolla's fifth-best result (record was 47,792 set in 2007), another sign of the fragmenting market that is killing local car manufacturing. The Corolla earned top-seller status despite selling less than half the Holden Commodore's annual peak.Korean car maker Hyundai ranked fourth overall but was the second-biggest seller of passenger cars in Australia in 2013. Mercedes-Benz won the luxury car sales category, outselling BMW and Audi. The Mercedes-Benz C-Class sedan was the third best-selling medium-size sedan behind the Toyota Camry and Mazda6.This reporter is on Twitter: @JoshuaDowlingTop 10 cars 2013Toyota Corolla 43,498 up 12.1 per centMazda3 42,082 down 4.6 per centToyota HiLux 39,931 down 1.7 per centHyundai i30 30,582 up 7.9 per centHolden Commodore 27,766 down 9.1 per centToyota Camry 24,860 down 8.7 per centMitsubishi Triton 24,512 up 32.4 per centHolden Cruze 24,421 down 16.3 per centNissan Navara 24,108 down 7.4 per centFord Ranger 21,752 down 7.2 per centTop 10 brands 2013Toyota 214,630 down 1.6 per centHolden 112,059 down 2.3 per centMazda 103,144 down 0.7 per centHyundai 97,006 up 6.0 per centFord 87,236 down 3.5 per centNissan 76,733 down 3.8 per centMitsubishi 71,528 up 21.5 per centVolkswagen 54,892 stable 0.0 per centSubaru 40,200 stable 0.0 per centHonda 39,258 up 9.6 per centFalcon and Commodore hit new all-time lows in 2013Ford Falcon: 10,610 (compared to a peak of 81,000 in 1995)Holden Commodore: 27,766 (compared to a peak of 94,500 in 1998)A decade of record sales2004: 955,2292005: 988,2692006: 962,6662007: 1,049,9822008: 1,012,1642009: 937,3282010: 1,035,5742011: 1,008,4372012: 1,112,0322013: 1,136,227Locally made cars: then and now1999: 223,083 (including 184,000 Commodores and Falcons)2013: 118,510 (down 15 per cent on 2012, and the lowest since 1958) 

To a large extent the reason American automotive companies General Motors, Ford and Chrysler - once known in Australia as ''The Big Three'' - thrived so well in Australia was because American driving conditions were much like ours where huge distances needed to be covered over appalling roads.Unlike British automotive manufacturers who were busy building small four-cylinder, four-speed cars suitable for puttering around the Cotswolds, American car makers had their eyes fixed on developing countries like Australia where motorists were crying out for a powerful six-cylinder car with a lazy three-speed gearbox suitable for a long outback drive.It's no wonder American manufacturers wanted to set up factories in Australia. For three consecutive years during the 1920s Australia was the biggest export market for the US. Why wouldn't you build a car in Australia?From the moment the first locally made General Motors Holden's car - the 48/215 - rolled off the brand-new Australian production line in 1948 we embraced an Australo-American-style of motoring for the next 30 years. In time the six-cylinder found under the bonnet of a garden-variety Holden or Ford Falcon grew a bit more into a range of brutal, thirsty V8s fuelling the emergence of a uniquelyAustralian tribal culture whereby families swore Civil War-style blood-oaths to champion either Holden or Ford. But the mid 1970s saw very real threats to the Australian car industry - spiraling inflation, a global oil crisis and the introduction of new safety compliance rules coupled with drastic exhaust emission controls placed whopping pressure on local car manufacturers.On top of that Australian motorists were now warming to smaller, cheaper Japanese imports. GMH was in trouble. In 1976 a new management team arrived headed by Minnesota born Chuck Chapman, chief engineer for General Motors' German subsidiary Opel. Chapman, used to piloting less powerful but better handling European cars, took one drive of the locally built Australian product and embarked on an automotive jihad to fix the lousy ability for the Kingswood to do everyday things - like turn a corner or stop.It was time to introduce the sort of European technology few Australians had experienced - rack and pinion steering and Macpherson strut suspension - that continental car manufacturers had been employing since WWII.Further it was time to replace the old billiard-table sized Kingswood with something more compact, more efficient, more stylish - more European - so GMH experimented with a hybrid of two popular German General Motors cars - the Opel Rekord and Senator.It took some time to get it right. The Rekord when thrashed on outback roads had a tendency to break in half and the whole project would regularly return to the drawing board requiring considerable beefing-up for Australian conditions.In the end GMH got it right. The gamble to upgrade and modernise the Holden sedan proved a quantum leap.The arrival of the VB Commodore in 1978 was heralded in ads as ''world class''. And for an Australian car it was, being awarded Wheels magazine's car of the year and praised for it's value for money, ride quality and handling - all things we weren't terribly familiar with back then.Despite the occasional hiccup the Commodore has reigned as the company's undisputed flagship, but in 2013 our motoring tastes have changed. Today's Commodore still presents astonishing value but Australians no longer have the hard-wired urge to own a big six or eight cylinder sedan.Where once TV ads for Holden cars showed a family-filled Commodore belting along a bush track, today's advertisements depict Australians as aspirational, funky city dwellers grooving from the gym to a café to a nightclub in a car a third of the size.As we know, the Holden Commodore's American parent has all but scuppered it with the announcement General Motors will shut-up shop in Australia. And the release of sales figures this week announcing 2013 as being the Holden's worst-ever year - the mighty Commodore slipping some 9 per cent in 2013 - justifies their decision. Chuck Chapman, the Commodore's overseer, never saw the demise of his creation - he passed away on December 18, 2012.

Holden's VF Commodore has already had the tuning wand waved over it locally by the likes of HSV, Walkinshaw Performance and Harrop Engineering, but the US-market Chevrolet SS version is about to score a similar treatment from the aftermarket maestros at Hennessey Performance.Rather than making performance claims via simple press release, the US firm has showcased the upcoming package in the above video, where the boosted Chevy SS is used to test a new Texas freeway’s automated toll system under the supervision of a Texas Highway Patrol Dodge Challenger.While the top speed of 262km/h is about what you could expect from a stock 6.2-litre SS, it’s fair to say the HSV GTS-trumping 600hp (448kW) output suggested by the HPE600 supercharger upgrade’s name will help it get it there a lot quicker.Hennessy are you to specify any other details of its planned upgrades, but Motor Authority reports that high-flow induction and turbo systems, intercooler and exhaust packages, plus engine management tunes, brake and suspension upgrades are also in the works. Read our first drive of the 2014 Chevrolet SS here. Watch the desktop version of the Hennessy SS toll road video here. This reporter is on Twitter: @Mal_Flynn 

Holden's new 'We're Here To Stay' commercial was intended to reassure Australia that the brand will not disappear in the future. But has the carmaker shown more of the future than it meant to?The ad features Holden ambassadors, dealers and staff -- and among the last of those is a designer working on a car we've not seen before. What shows on his computer screen is a four-door but with a fast coupe-like line to the rear roof. Meanwhile, sketches around his desk show a sportback or shooting brake wagon body.Holden has confirmed the person in the ad is not an actor, but one of their designers,  Evan Kingsbury, in their Melbourne studio. However the carmaker is coy about the vehicle Kingsbury is working on. "It's just a possible future General Motors car," Holden head of PR George Svigos told Carsguide, declining to be drawn further on the subject.So do the designs point to the next Commodore to be launched here after Holden halts manufacturing in 2017 -- which would mean it's a GM model in any case. Or are they sneak peeks at designs for the Chinese market, for which Holden announced earlier this year it would be developing two cars in a partnership between GM and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC).Either way, with GM's move towards more global platforms, there is the probability we will see a large sedan built on one of them in Australia after the Commodore ceases rolling off the local production line.That could mean the design work in the ad feeds into a project for a new Chinese-built Buick flagship that could be rebadged as a future Commodore.  That arrangement -- and the fluid lines of the design -- would fit with a comment in May by Mark Reuss, who told Forbes he'd like to see a Buick flagship that was “a much more beautiful Panamera,” (Porsche’s four-door sedan).At the time, Reuss was GM executive vice president and president of North America, but as the boss of Holden from February 2008 until September 2009, few would be more aware of the automotive design talent in Australia.And in his new position as GM's executive vice president of product development -- replacing May Barra in her move to the CEO's chair -- Reuss is certainly in a position to make the most of our talent pool.

Following Holden's announcement that it will stop making cars in Australia after 2017, there's been strong concern about what would happen to the badge, with the big question being whether it would continue in Australia or be replaced by Chevrolet.Holden has responded with a new ad campaign titled Here To Stay, which doesn't shy away from the shutdown decision that will see about 2900 jobs go in Victoria's Port Melbourne and South Australia's Elizabeth plants. However the campaign aims to send a message to Australia that there is more to Holden than the factory floors, and there will be more imported cars to come wearing the Holden brand.But while the campaign has appeared very quickly, it wasn't part of the initial shutdown planning, Holden's executive director of vehicle sales, service and marketing, Philip Brook, says. "When we were notified of the shutdown decision this wasn't on the list of things we were planning to do," he says. "But what became apparent over the first three or four days was that there was a lot of misinformation out there -- there were some sensationalist headlines about 'Holden's gone and we're leaving the country altogether'."That was the impression people were getting ... and there were a couple of articles that were just plain wrong around us walking away from the Holden brand and using Chevrolet, and people has said we'd studied that -- absolutely categorically incorrect. And that we were bringing Commodores in from China -- again absolutely incorrect."Brook says the aim of the campaign is to make sure the public knew what Holden is planning for the future. "We wanted to get out and really clear things up with the public and make sure they understood that the Holden brand has been around for 100 years and we plan to be around for a very long time to come," he says."We just wanted to clear up the confusion, so it's really to let all of Australia understand we're here, and we've got a massive job to do -- we've got hundreds of thousands of cars and engines to build in the next four years.And we plan to continue selling Holdens well into the future, because it's two car lines that we build here in Australia but the rest of our model range is imported and we're going to transition to a fully imported model range."Brook says the campaign was also aimed at supporting the brand's own dealer network. "We've also got more than 230 dealers and thousands and thousands of staff that are employed by those dealers and massive investments that they've made over the years in Holden. And really what we wanted to do was support them as well, so this campaign is just about clearing things up."He says the creative approach for the campaign, and its launch, were both achieved with astonishing speed -- and largely sparked by the response from friends of people at Holden HQ. "We basically made the announcement about manufacturing on Tuesday and briefed the agency -- AJF in Melbourne who do all our ad creative work -- on the Thursday and they turned around the concept overnight."Normally  a campaign like this would take us months and we turned it around in a week so we're very happy with the work that's been done in a such period of time. But it was just a simple message, nothing more and nothing less than 'we've been around for a long time and we're going to be around for a long, long time in the future'."We made the announcement about shutting down manufacturing and then gave it 48 hours to gauge the reaction -- and a lot of us had friends and acquaintances ringing and texting and asking if Holden was finishing, based on the headlines and some of the articles they were seeing. So we wanted to clear that up and get the message out there."And while many businesses would have skirted any bad news in their next campaign following such an announcement, Holden has been very up front about mentioning the shutdown in the commercial."That's part of the Holden brand and being Australian. We've always been honest in our advertising," Brook says. "That's the way we do things -- it's part of our DNA -- that how we've always done things and that's how we'll continue to do things."However, despite the new commercial being panned by social media, and following on from a previous ad campaign based around the 'Think Holden' tagline, Brook says the new commercial is not part of the first steps to have Australia 'rethink Holden' as a full importer.   "This isn't the start of the repositioning," he says. "We've got a number of years yet with the brand and similar sort of products. We've got plenty of time to work through that. This was really just a short sharp campaign and once we get the message out there we'll move on and get back to the main job -- selling cars."