Holden Commodore News

And so emotional we saw two usually very cool guys show their human side at the awards night on Monday. Retiring V8 Supercars boss Tony Cochrane really was quite emotional when he became the first non-driver to be inducted into the hall of fame. Then our team principal, Roland Dane, got up and made a very impassioned speech. It was that type of year of emotions with the end of the Holden versus Ford era and the 50th anniversary of Bathurst. I was quite happy to have finished the year with a flourish, scoring a first and second at Homebush despite fairly ordinary grid positions and copping a 25-point penalty. It was frustrating to end up second, just over 300 points away from my teammate Jamie Whincup. I put that down to my driver error in turn four at Symmons Plains earlier this year. That put me out of that race and with the cars being so reliable it is almost impossible to make up for even one non-finish. Unfortunately there’s not much chance of carrying my winning momentum through to next year because we have all new cars and two new manufacturers which will put a whole new complexion on the championship. It was very sad to see such a talent as Shane van Gisbergen end his too-short career with two DNFs. It was equally sad to see Greg Murphy possibly end his career in the same way. But our sport is so healthy we have lots of young talent ready to step up. Like David Reynolds who tied for second in the Barry Sheene medal with me. Also, I have to say Scott McLaughlin very much deserves a go in the main game. At just 19, he's emerging as a real future talent. For me, the highlight of the year was Bathurst. Even though we didn’t win, it was an amazing week of motorsport with a huge audience and lots of promotional activity. Having my car decked out in Peter Brock livery was very stirring and then to be able to drive Bev Brock around the mountain was something I will never forget. It quite simply was one of the biggest weeks of my career in motor racing. Next for me is another test in next year’s car, followed by a Christmas break with the kids, then I’m off to France in the new year for the Monte Carlo Classic Rally. It’s been a long season, but before I know it we’ll be back on the starting line for an even longer 2013 season with new circuits and new challenges.  

The fuse was lit in Las Vegas when Chevrolet unveiled its competition clone of the Holden hero as the Chevrolet SS. Strip away the numbers and racing warpaint and you see the road-going SS, which is also the VF for Australia and a future export winner with up to 10,000 sales a year. The look is bolder than today, with much more body contouring and an aggressive nose, but no-one is confirming how much of the NASCAR racing package - including its wildly flared guards - will be transferred to the road. The SS road car will go public at Daytona in Florida in February, then Holden will race VF-bodied V8 Supercars from March, the VF is scheduled for sale in April, and exports of the SS to the USA begin in the third quarter of 2013. "If you think Australians don't have influence, look at the SS," Mark Reuss, the former head of Holden who is now GM's chief of North American operations, tells Carsguide. "We're keeping Holden in mind. They're driving this. It's their project." The SS could easily become a major export winner for Holden and Australia, based on the plan for the car and previous success with the Pontiac G8. It was just getting good traction when Pontiac was killed as part of General Motors' bankruptcy proceedings. The SS is set as a premium performance car, will only be sold as a fully-loaded V8, and will be channeled through the much larger Chevrolet dealer network of 3000 outlets. "The Holden brand is one of our jewels. We're all fully supportive here," says Reuss. "Its future is very bright. But it will be ever-evolving, because if it says the same then it will be out of date." There is nothing outdated about the SS racers in Vegas, as they will help lead a major change in 2013 in the NASCAR oval-track series. "We've putting the stock back in stock car racing," Reuss says. He was the one who convinced NASCAR to change the regulations back to bodies that are more like regular road cars for the coming season, using the Chevrolet SS - although we prefer the Commodore handle - as part of the bait. He promised GM would bring a homologated road car, complete with V8 engine and rear-wheel drive, to showrooms if NASCAR tweaked its rules. When that happened, it opened the doors for the VF Commodore. So the heartbeat of America - Chevy's slogan - is now officially Australian. One of Chevrolet's champion racers, Tony Stewart, has been to Australia three times and even plans to put a Maloo ute into his garage. "How do I feel about racing a Holden? Real good," Stewart tells Carsguide. "I've been a fan of the brand since I first raced in Australia in 1995. I'm going to have one of these as a road car, real soon." Reuss refuses to give any detail on the mechanical package of the SS-VF, beyond admitting the V8 engine and rear drive. But the arrival of the SS signals an old-fashioned approach to motor racing that should work well for Holden, particularly with its Car of the Future fleet set to run VF bodywork from the Clipsal 500 meeting in Adelaide in March. “When you win races, it lifts the whole brand’s image. Opinions get better and people put you on your shopping list faster,” says Jim Campbell, GM vice-president of performance vehicles and motorsports. “There’s the old adage if you win on Sunday you sell on Monday. It just depends on which Monday, it might be a week, a month, or a year, but you’ve got to earn it.”      

The Chevrolet NASCAR unveiled in Las Vegas overnight has given Australian car buyers their biggest clue yet to the appearance of the new-look Holden Commodore due next year. The NASCAR clearly shows the Commodore will adopt a sleeker look in its headlights and grille, and a pronounced bulge in its bonnet. The Commodore looks like it is also poised to adopt front fender vents similar to some Jaguar models -- and the Holden Special Vehicles performance car brand. The tail-lights will be larger than those illustrated on the NASCAR (they're stickers, not functional) and the bootlid will have a similar edge to it as the BMW 7 Series. "We are not going to discuss any more details on the Holden Commodore or the Chevrolet SS today," said the former boss of Holden Mark Reuss, now the boss of General Motors in North America, who unveiled the car in Las Vegas this morning. "We will show you the road car at Daytona speed week . You will have to wait until then." That means Australian car buyers will get to see the new Holden Commodore four months before production at Adelaide is due to commence, giving Holden dealers the added headache of selling a car when buyers know a new model is around the corner. But at least Australians will be first to get behind the wheel. The Holden Commodore is due to return to North America as a Chevrolet in the second half of 2013, a few months after it arrives in Australian showrooms. In North America, it will be sold as a V8-only "Performance SS" model. Holden, meanwhile, will reduce the variety of Commodore models it offers in the new line-up, giving preference to sports and luxury versions. General Motors has not confirmed what engine will power the export version, but it is expected to have the same 6.2-litre LS3 V8 fitted to the Corvette sports car and the HSV vehicles sold in Australia. The Commodore was first sold in North America between 2007 and 2009 but the export deal collapsed after General Motors folded the Pontiac brand in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. GM thinks the Commodore will have a better chance at export success the second time around because Chevrolet is a more high profile brand and it has a stronger dealer network.  

That's the incredible significance of the unveiling of the upcoming VF Commodore as the Chevrolet SS in Las Vegas this morning.The SS will be Chevrolet's frontline race weapon in the NASCAR oval-track racing series and will also become a showroom car in the third quarter of next year with the potential to build an export business that's way bigger than Holden managed in the days when it was exporting the Pontiac G8 to the USA.This time around, around 3000 Chevrolet dealers - who operate under the slogan 'Heartbeat of America' - will be selling the SS as the brand's V8-powered performance flagship. "The new SS won't be mistaken for any other car. It bears a striking resemblance to the road car," says Mark Reuss, formerly chairman of Holden and now president of GM North America, at the unveiling of the Nascar racer."We've putting the stock back in stock car racing." Reuss warns against reading too much into the appearance of the SS racer and its impact on the upcoming VF Holden, but confirms that the shape of the race car - especially its wildly flared guards, bulging bonnet and sculpted sides - will be reflected in the SS.The Holden name was only used once in the press preview of the SS in Las Vegas but its importance is not lost on former NASCAR champion Tony Stewart, who has raced in Australia three times since the 1990s in dirt-track cars. "How do I feel about racing a Holden? Real good," Stewart tells Carsguide."I've been a fan of the brand since I first raced in Australia in 1995. I'm going to have one of these as a road car, real soon." The Chevrolet SS road car will be revealed in February at Daytona in the lead-up to the start of the 2013 NASCAR season, two months before the expected on-sale date of the VF Commodore in Australia. 

The homegrown Holden Commodore will be unveiled as Chevrolet’s new NASCAR racer in the USA in Las Vegas tomorrow. US exports of the Commodore are due to resume next year after the previous deal collapsed in 2009, when General Motors shut down the Pontiac brand in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. Racing the Commodore as a NASCAR will put the Commodore in front of North America’s second biggest TV sport audience behind football, watched domestically by 75 million fans per year. The tie-up makes Holden and Chevrolet more closely aligned than ever before, with every car in the Holden line-up now sold as a Chevrolet overseas. However, the president of General Motors North America, Mark Reuss, says the Holden badge will not be replaced by the Chevrolet symbol in Australia – even though such a move would bring ‘Holden’ into Chevrolet’s global sponsorships, such as the $559 million seven-year naming rights deal with the Manchester United soccer team. “The Holden brand is precious, there is nothing like that brand in the portfolio of General Motors,” Reuss told News Limited at the Los Angeles motor show overnight. “I’d fight for that. It’s too strong. It’s one of the jewels in the GM crown.” Although Reuss is a Detroiter, he has a soft spot for Holden, having been the boss of General Motors’ Australian outpost in 2008 and 2009.  When Reuss returned to the US, he shipped back a classic 1959 Holden to restore. Reuss was instrumental in getting the Commodore back to North America, and the Holden Caprice US police-car export deal. Chevrolet is yet to announce details about its version of the Commodore, which will be sold only as a V8 performance model, but Reuss likened it to a "four-door Corvette". “It will be closer to the refinement and performance of the new Corvette than the one you know today,” he said. “It’s a big change. These will be cars that people really want.” Reuss says there are “no sales targets” for the Commodore on its second attempt at cracking the lucrative US market, after the company was caught out dearly with over-supply last time around. “When we get orders for this car, we will signal the factory in Adelaide, they will make the cars, put them on a boat and they’ll come over here,” he said. “I’ve lived through the other one and it was the wrong way to distribute cars.” Reuss said he didn’t want Holden’s factory to “staff-up a whole bunch of people and then happens, we’ve got to do something with those people. I don’t want to do that.” More than 41,000 Commodores were sold as Pontiacs between November 2007 and February 2009, almost equivalent to Holden’s annual sales of Commodore at the time – but the deal ended when the Pontiac brand was axed in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. “It was a big loss when we lost the Pontiac G8,” Reuss said at the time.  

It makes for exciting racing for both the drivers and the fans. As we’re getting more experience with the soft tyres we are getting more life out of them. I don’t think the quality of the tyres is any better but teams now know how to set the car up for them and we as drivers are learning how to conserve their wear. However, with the new cars next year on 18-inch wheels, we will go back to square one with regards to set-up. When you have a combination of hard and soft tyres in a race, teams have different strategies so you get a lot of speed differential out on the track which means loads of passing. We didn’t start the weekend off well struggling to get the car to 15th on the grid for the first race. I was sitting there on the grid thinking I have nothing to lose so I put everything into it. We had a great start and made up four spots by turn three only to have Jason Bright turn around in front of us and lose some of that advantage. We went into race with the strategy that if there was an early safety car we would do what we did in Darwin and turn it into a two-stop race and get on that set of soft tyres as soon as possible. My race engineer, JJ (Jeromy Moore), did a fantastic job considering the position we started in. Jamie was always the guy to beat, but we fought hard to claim second. Once we had Saturday out of the way, we were more confident in the car and put a decent lap together for qualifying which gave us fourth on the grid. Again Jamie was the one to beat and we would have been second had he not had that unfortunate drive-through penalty for turning his wheels while up on jacks in the pits. He didn’t celebrate after mathematically securing the championship with more than a 300-point lead. He’s still pretty focused on the final at Homebush and won’t celebrate until the job is done and dusted. It was a shame to hear the news this week that we might be losing a couple of Kiwis next year. Shane Van Gisbergen is one of the characters of the sport and we need the next generation of drivers coming through. If he does quit, he will be going home with unfinished business. At the other end of the game is Greg Murphy who appears to be out of a drive for next year. However, I wouldn’t write him off yet. He’s still a talented driver in the right car and he was in this exact same position this time last year. Murph has contributed a lot to the sport over the years and it would be a sad day if he left. However, he’s colourful and opinionated and if the rumours are true it would be great to see him annoying Mark Skaife and Neil Crompton in the media centre.  

The most senior executives in charge of electrification at General Motors in the US made the comments even though GM offers arm’s length support to the Melbourne-based experimental project by enabling the “donor” cars to be built on Holden’s production line in Adelaide. In July this year EV Engineering unveiled seven Holden Commodores that had their V6 engines replaced by electric motors – and installed a battery pack that can be “swapped” at a semi-automated exchange station in five minutes. But while the project is still in its infancy, the global car industry and the world’s biggest automotive market, China, are abandoning the idea of battery swap schemes, say General Motors’ experts.  Speaking at General Motors' inaugural electrification symposium in San Francisco overnight, Ray Bierzynski was asked by Australian media if the electric Holden Commodore’s battery swap project was “irrelevant”. He answered “yes”, even though Holden has offered nominal support by agreeing to allow the experimental cars to go down its production line minus the V6 engine, gearbox and petrol tank.  When asked about the likely uptake of battery swap schemes such as those proposed by start-up Better Place, Bierzynski, the executive director of electrification strategy for General Motors, said: “You still have to charge the battery whether they’re on board the vehicle or . So why not charge them onboard the vehicle? “When you take them off the vehicle you’re now introducing into the supply stream multiple batteries for each vehicle. It may not be two batteries for each vehicle but it’s certainly more than one per vehicle, because they have to be stored someplace while they’re being recharged. “So it’s much better, much more efficient for many reasons to recharge the battery it’s onboard the vehicle.” He was then asked if the Melbourne-based EV Engineering exercise was therefore “irrelevant” to General Motors’ “global ambitions and operations” – and he answered “yes”. Earlier in the presentation Pamela Fletcher, GM’s executive chief engineer for global electrified vehicles, told the gathering of international media that China – the world’s biggest car market and strong advocate for electric vehicles – was moving away from battery swap systems. “State Grid in China was all about battery swapping, they thought that was the future of electrification in China,” she said. “But even State Grid have moved away from it too. There are just too many entities that have to collide and co-ordinate to make that happen.” Bierzynski then added: “It’s not a practical,” citing issues such as establishing battery swap stations and having car makers agree on a single battery size. Although Toyota leads the hybrid car race with more than 4 million sales to date, General Motors has sold more plug-in vehicles than any other brand, including Toyota, Mitsubishi and the Nissan-Renault alliance (the latter initially strong supporters of battery swap schemes). General Motors says it plans to introduce 500,000 electric cars – from hybrids to pure electric vehicles – by 2015 and 5 million by 2020. Earlier this year an experimental Holden Commodore built by EV Engineering set an “unofficial record” for the longest distance travelled in 24 hours by an electric car. It travelled 1886 kilometres, equivalent to a return Sydney-Melbourne trip. However the battery pack was swapped 15 times in that 24 hour period (equivalent to refueling 15 times in a fuel economy challenge). EV Engineering also ferried 65 parliamentarians, including 15 Ministers, when the Canberra COMCAR fleet used the electric Commodores during a two week trial in July. “The most common feedback from passengers was about how smooth and quiet the ride was, which we are absolutely delighted by,” Ian McCleave, CEO of EV Engineering, said at the time. “Clients who experienced a drive in the Commodore were overwhelmingly positive in their responses – wonderful, very excited,” a statement from EV Engineering said. The Holden Commodores built by EV Engineering have a theoretical driving range of 150km between recharges – or battery swaps. The electric motor has 145kW of power and 400Nm of torque, giving it similar acceleration to a V6 Commodore, with a claimed 0 to 100km/h time of 8.5 seconds. News Limited has contacted EV Engineering and is awaiting comment.  

General Motors says the V8 won over heavy support for a bi-turbo V6. But Corvette chief engineer Tadge Juechter told Automotive News that the V8  “could deliver better power with improved fuel economy by improving the iconic small block V8 with new technologies that allow it to run more efficiently”. He says that swapping the small-block V8 for a V6 “probably would have been a tough sell to the Corvette's rabid fans”. “When you talk to Corvette customers, the most important part of the car for them is the engine,” Juechter says. “They want their Corvette to have a V8.” This is the fifth generation of the small block that was introduced in 1955 on the first Corvette. The new engine - which will dribble down the GM range including models for Holden - will feature several firsts for Corvette including direct fuel injection, continuously variable valve timing and cylinder deactivation to shut down four of the eight cylinders when idling or coasting. GM engineers say the new engine will deliver better power and responsiveness when it is running at lower speeds. The torque on the standard 2014 Corvette at less than 4000rpm will be comparable to the current Corvette Z06, which has a higher-displacement 7-litre engine. The overhead valve engine, which GM has named LT1, was under development for five years. It replaces the fourth-generation small block, which has been produced since 2005, and will be made at GM's engine facility in Tonawanda, New York State. GM admits that the LT1 is 210kg - about 14kg heavier than the outgoing engine - but says the new efficiency technologies more than offset the fuel economy penalty. Versions of the new engine will be used in GM's next generation of pickups and SUVs, including the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, to be launched mid next year. Holden says it will not comment on if or when the engine will arrive in Australia.  

Though the upcoming VF Holden Commodore – in the form of its 2014 Chevrolet SS sibling -- won’t be revealed until the Daytona 500 next February, we’ll get a good preview of its styling next month with the reveal of the Chevrolet SS NASCAR race car that will be tackling the 2013 Sprint Cup Series.The new Chevrolet SS NASCAR Sprint Cup race car, which so far has only been seen in full camouflage mode, is expected to be revealed on November 29 at a special event hosted at the Wynn Las Vegas.Chevrolet is the last brand to unveil its new race car for the 2013 Sprint Cup Series, whose regulations were altered to allow designers of the race cars to make them more closely resemble the road cars they represent.What isn’t shared with the production model is pretty much everything under the skin. All NASCAR Sprint Cup challengers feature a tube frame chassis packing a V-8 engine sending drive to the rear wheels.The Chevrolet SS NASCAR Sprint Cup car will be competing alongside racing versions of the Ford Fusion and Toyota Camry.www.motorauthority.com 

The Mercedes-Benz A-Class will start at $35,600 plus on-road costs when it arrives in local showrooms in March - compared to the RRP of $39,990 for the basic fleet version of the Commodore sedan.In yet another grim sign of the competition facing locally-made cars, the new Mercedes-Benz A-Class hatch will also come with more equipment and better fuel economy than what was once Australia’s favourite car.The new baby Benz comes standard with nine airbags (to the Commodore’s tally of six), crash avoidance technology, a rear view camera and tyres that will never go flat, even when punctured. It will also be easy on the wallet at the petrol pump: sipping just 5.8L/100km - about one-third less than the most efficient Commodore.The miserly Merc will also have longer service intervals - requiring a visit to the dealer once a year or every 25,000km (whichever comes first), compared to nine months or every 15,000km for the Holden Commodore."The economy is doing well, the personal savings of Australians are at an all-time high … and now we have a car that’s within the reach of families and young buyers," said Horst von Sanden, managing director of Mercedes-Benz Australia passenger cars. "In Europe, families drive this type of car and if you look at small-car sales here, Australians are also embracing this trend. People are asking: ‘how big does my car need to be’?”Interest in Mercedes’ new cut-price model is so strong the company air-freighted three models for display at the Sydney Motor Show, which opens this Friday. "It’s early days but we estimate about half of buyers will never have owned a Mercedes before," he said. Not everything about the new Mercedes-Benz A-Class is cheap, though. Metallic paint adds $1190 to the price. On a Holden it is $550.