Holden Commodore News

Trying to make some sense of it all is tough, but here is my best shot - today.Australia's car sales are heading for only their fourth 1-million year in 2011, but local production - and therefore exports - is down to the lowest level since 1957.The general trend - like most of the world - is downsizing. Traditional Aussie six-cylinder family cars - Falcon and Commodore - have had 20-30 per cent sales falls through 2011, while demand for small cars is up by 20 per cent most months.This is re-shaping the motor industry, leading Holden to start local production of the Cruze alongside the Commodore in Adelaide and forcing Ford to engineer a four-cylinder engine into the Falcon for 2012.Biggest change through 2011 is the performance of Mazda, which is now consistently number 4 in Australia thanks to the sales of its compact Mazda3.But Hyundai and Kia are also making rapid gains and Volkswagen is now a top-10 brand for the first time in decades.On the dealer front, profitability is poor. They have only just recovered from the GFC but the strong Australian dollar and demand for smaller cars has slashed per-unit profits. Some small cars now only earn a dealer a $400 margin.But car companies are making solid returns, since there are only 3 local manufacturers now and the other 61 brands - including cars, trucks and commercials - are importers who are helped by the strength of the dollar in buying power from home office.The three local manufacturers - Holden, Ford and Toyota - are all going through major renewals.The all-new Camry will be out in November - with the Camry hybrid early in 2012 - after a delay because of strike action at Altona.Ford has updated the Territory this year, including a diesel engine, and it is selling strongly, while the Falcon has also lifted in recent months thanks to a new LPG system that taps into demand from fleets and taxis.The VE Commodore is being dress-up with value packs - like the latest Equipe - as well as a range of economy improvements including the upcoming dedicated LPG model. Its big move for 2011 was the local production of the Cruze hatch, which is now forecast to eventually overtake the Commodore as Holden's biggest seller.Cars and utes from Thailand have become the low-cost source for a range of Japanese brands, who have moved production offshore. So that means the Toyota HiLux, a range of Honda models, and the latest Ford Ranger and Mazda BT50 utes, all come from Thailand.That is good news for consumers who get more cost-effective products and it's also helped Japanese brand stay price competitive.Japanese brands dominate the Australian automotive landscape and nothing shows it better than Toyota's place at number one, with more than 20 per cent of all salesMazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru and Honda are also strong.But Japan is lagging against the Korean attack and needs to lift the game on quality and 'European' design and engineering as their products are now being matched by Kia and Hyundai on the quality front, and undercut on value and warranty.Japan was hit worst by the GFC, with brands winding back research and development, so Honda will suffer for at least the next 2 years, Suzuki has nothing new and important for 3 years, and even Toyota's product changes are slower than normal.Chinese brands are establishing a beach head in Australia thanks to prices that typically undercut an equivalent Japanese model by 30 per cent.Great Wall is doing best with its utes and a medium SUV, but Chery is struggling with an $11,990 car that is sub-standard - even against the Koreans - on quality, comfort and performance. Geely is the only other passenger car brand but only sold in WA as its cars do not quality for the Victorian safety legislation that mandates ESP in 2011.But - and it's a big one - the Chinese are learning fast and prepared to make big changes. Poor safety result in independent NCAP testing have led to safety improvements at Great Wall and Chery, and Chery changes the gearbox in the J1 model after a single poor road test by Carsguide. So the industry is still the biggest secondary manufacturing base in Australia and critical to the 'brain thrust' in the country going forward. Holden and Ford now both do global engineering work in Melbourne.

The cars we know today are heading towards the knacker's yard with no chance of a reprieve. That's just a plain fact that anyone who can read a balance sheet and the latest sales numbers will understand.Big car sales in Australia have been falling for a decade and have dropped dramatically this year, with the Falcon looking critically wounded and even the Holden Commodore - which has been Australia's favourite car for 15 years - suffering a string of showroom defeats at the hands of the Mazda3 and Toyota Corolla.But that's not the end of the story. In fact, it could be the start of an all-new one. The Falcon and Commodore nameplates are likely to continue to 2020 and beyond, but fitted to very different cars to the ones in showrooms today.They are going to be smaller, more fuel-efficient, tied more closely to global development programs at General Motors and Ford, and - whisper it - potentially with front-wheel drive. Today's Ford and Holden heroes are dinosaurs by any measurement, including the ones that saw the Chrysler Valiant, Leyland P76 and even the Holden Kingswood overtaken by newer and more efficient arrivals.Basically, people have stopped buying them. It's happening today as Australians parachute out of their traditional 'big six' family cars into something as small as a Mazda3 or Toyota Corolla in one of the biggest mass migrations of recent times.What that means for the futurists at Ford and Holden is finding a formula that works for the Commodore and Falcon beyond 2015, when the hard decisions have to be made on development of cars for showrooms after 2018. A Falcon twinned with the Taurus from America is a no-brainer for Ford.Local development can provide the taste and tweaks that Aussies like, while the basic engineering is handled by a cost-effective crew operating from Detroit, USA. Front-wheel drive is certain for the Taurus, with all-wheel drive likely to keep Aussies happy.Things are less clear at Holden, but it has a range of global cars underway and it would be easy to create a cost-effective local look and then add the sort of Australian engineering excellence that's already working for the compact Cruze in production in Adelaide.

That's the message from chairman and managing director of GM Holden Mike Devereux, who has hit back at claims by the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers (APESMA) the next-generation Commodore - due in 2014 - would be the last Australian-designed model. "Actually the claim that was made on radio - and I'm reading a transcript - was that the 2014 Commodore is not designed and engineered in Australia - first of all I needed to dispel that, even though that is not what Chris Walton meant to say, it is what he said, so I needed to dispel that myth," he said. Devereux says no design and engineering decisions have been made for Commodore beyond the 2014 vehicle, but the long-term future for manufacturing in Adelaide - where hundreds of millions has been recently spent by GM - is not in question. "Where GM engineers anything has no bearing on what we build in Adelaide - the two things are unrelated, in our recent past we've had VE locally-engineered but way back at the start of Commodore, it was an Opel, Holden has evolved from adapting architectures, to VE and so the manufacturing business case is quite separate from what we engineer," Devereux says. APESMA chief executive Chris Walton claimed yesterday Holden insiders had suggested the Commodore beyond the 2014 model may not be created in Australia, which would result in up to 300 engineers in Melbourne losing their jobs. "We're trying to have very transparent conversations about the options for the talented engineering base we have here in Australia," Devereux says. "Those conversations, if they're productive, ought to remain confidential in order to secure great outcomes." Devereux says Holden is still in "formulation mode" on what happens beyond the 2014 Commodore. "No, we haven't made a decision on what we will build in Adelaide post our current range and post model-year 2014, I won't speculate on the timing," he says. The claims of job losses have cast a shadow over the company's Elizabeth manufacturing facility as it gets underway with production of the new Cruze hatch. The Adelaide factory employs around 2500 people building Commodore and Cruze - Australian Manufacturing Workers Union state secretary John Camillo says there is reason to be confident in job security at Elizabeth. "For the next three to five years I'm quite happy and comfortable with that going forward," he says. "We always looked to the five-year plan, in terms of 2018/19/2020 - it is probably too far out to see now - we will be sitting down with senior GM executives next week and thrashing out the issues then." "We have always looked at future plans as part of negotiations. Given the investment they've made here I'm very confident in regards to job security at Elizabeth. But there are no guarantees ... we could have another GFC," he says. Minister for Trade and Manufacturing Tom Koutsantonis says Holden has confirmed its strong committment to it South Australian operations. "I will be meeting Mr Devereux in the next couple of weeks to clarify matters but he assured me that Holden is committed to SA and the workers at the Elizabeth plant," he says.

The first prototypes of the Holden VF Commodore coming in 2013 are under way and will soon be entering major test programs at Holden's Lang Lang proving ground. They are the solid proof that the Commodore has a homegrown future until at least 2018, as the upcoming VF will have a four-year life expectancy when it takes over from today's VE in showrooms around the middle of 2013. The prototype build program was confirmed yesterday by Holden's chairman and managing director, Mike Devereux, as he went public to counter claims that the locally-made Commodore had no future beyond 2014. "The 2014 Commodore is designed and engineered here. It is being engineered right now. We started building prototype vehicles in Port Melbourne two days ago," Devereux said. He was reacting to claims by The Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia that its members face major job losses without an ongoing development program for the Commodore. Holden currently employs around 1000 engineers and designers at its headquarters in Fishermans Bend, at the proving ground and its manufacturing base in Adelaide. However, Devereux and senior Holden executives avoided any answers about a Commodore to follow the VF, highlighting instead the need for research on future sales and technology trends in Australia and overseas - as well as the potential for financial assistance from the Federal government - before making decisions on the next major investment by the brand. "No, we haven't made a decision on what we will build in Adelaide post our current range and post model-year 2014, I won't speculate on the timing," Devereux said. "What we are going to make hasn't been decided yet. It's still too early." There is a widespread and well-founded belief that both Holden and Ford will eventually have to switch their local heroes - Commodore and Falcon - to a localised version of a strong selling global model. Ford is expected to eventually confirm an engineering tie-up with the Taurus model sold in the USA while the history of the Commodore actually started with a General Motors Europe car, the Opel Rekord, which was widened, re-engined and hugely improved by local engineers to become the original VB model in 1978. Work on the VF Commodore is being concentrated on weight cuts and efficiency gains, thanks in part to a $30 million grant from the defunct Green Car Innovation Fund, which was chopped by Canberra to fund rebuilding after this year's natural disasters in Queensland. There are no firm ideas yet on styling for the VF Commodore, but Holden design director Tony Stolfo has previously hinted that it could take some cues from the Chevrolet Volt -- which will go on sale here with a Holden badge -- and also the compact Cruze. The car will be built in Adelaide alongside the Cruze, which is already shaping as a major winner for the red lion brand. The Cruze has been selling strongly since it switched from Korean to Australian sourcing - with considerable local engineering and quality improvements - and is forecast to eventually overtake the Commodore as Holden's top selling model.

Don't you love the way Holden's PR machine handles bad news - namely the possible end of a locally designed Commodore - by preceding it with good news the day before. In this case it was a feel good yarn about the restoration of the first 48-215 Holden, built in 1948 and owned by legendary BHP boss Essington Lewis. Clever, but we saw straight through it. Cynics might suggest Holden is simply kite flying to see how much heat a possible end of local large car production might bring. And there's been plenty already from all quarters, including government and unions. Is it pure chance that Ford is hinting at something similar in a similar time frame - canning local production of Aussie designed (and built) six cylinder rear wheel drive sedans to be replaced by rejigged front wheel drive American imports. In Holden's case the donor country could even be Korea. After Mitsubishi's "death by a thousand cuts'' withdrawal from local production, could we be seeing the start of a protracted strategic withdrawal from Ford and Holden - a PR campaign aimed at letting us down slowly (but surely). Or is it a case of sabre rattling to scare up more subsidies. Neither Holden nor Ford would be happy with the Federal Government when the Green Car Fund was boned. It was essentially a bribe paid to the Australian car industry to maintain car production in this country. The Green Car sweetener cost tax payers tens of millions of dollars for which they get Aussie jobs. Naturally, all profits are repatriated to parent companies in the US and Japan.

after the company told senior staff it would stop making the iconic Commodore.Job losses could start early next year with up to 350 staff losing their jobs by mid-2013.Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers chief Chris Walton said senior Holden staff were told the 2014 Commodore could be the last made in Australia.Mr Walton said the union, which represents engineers who design the Commodore, was told of the possible changes while negotiating a new pay deal.

... but it could very well be as tight a finish as the Melbourne Cup. I'm hoping to whittle down my teammate's 143-point lead next week at Tasmania and take the championship right to the wire in the finale at Sydney next month. Hopefully it will be as exciting a finish as the Cup. I don't normally watch horse racing, but it's like Bathurst or a footy grand final; you just have to watch it. And what a remarkable finish with just 3mm between the horses. But while they use a camera to determine the winner, close finishes in our sport are determined by the lap timer underneath the car. Maybe they should fit those to the saddles. The proposed 2012 V8 Supercars calendar was announced during the Bathurst weekend and included one November slot to be confirmed. A month later and they still haven't confirmed it. The drivers and teams are starting to get a bit anxious as they'd obviously like to start making travel arrangements and get their heads around the circuit. All we know is it will be an international race. It doesn't line up with any F1 race, so it will have to be a stand-alone event. I approached V8 Supercars boss Tony Cochrane but I couldn't get anything out of him. He just said "somewhere" which is very much a Tony response. The talk has been that it could be the Philippines or Hong Kong, but they are not likely until the following year. I just hope it's somewhere in Asia, because that puts it in our time zone for better TV coverage. That is always the big problem with racing in the Mid East. It just doesn't suit our TV coverage. There is a possibility it could be at the new Buddh International Circuit in India where they staged the F1 at the weekend. It was quite dirty and dusty and had just been completed virtually while they were unloading the cars. But it looks sensational, with a lot of elevation changes and high-speed corners. I think it's a wise decision to start the season in Adelaide in March. It's been a bit of a false start for the fans the last couple of years. To start the last two seasons in February in the Mid East was a controversial and disappointing decision and most fans didn't really consider the season started until we hit the streets of Adelaide anyway. We still go to the Mid East, but next year it's in November in Abu Dhabi and we are alongside the F1. That will double our exposure to the world audience with our support at the Australian Grand Prix continuing. While the Melbourne event is a non-championship round, the Abu Dhabi races will be counted in the points, so I'm sure there will be a lot of Aussie motorsport fans eagerly tuning in. Our team has a close association with the McLaren Vodafone team and it's always great fun to rub shoulders with the F1 drivers and crew. The Sandown 500 makes a return next year which is an event and a track that I love. It's my old home track and there is a sense of tradition about the Sandown 500 as the prelude to Bathurst, which, by the way, returns to its rightful place over the first weekend in October. Phillip Island has been kind to me as an enduro event, but Sandown is the traditional 500 and I've had great results there. It's also closer to Melbourne with a fantastic grandstand where you can see 90 per cent of the lap so we always get a huge crowd. Our race in Hamilton next year will apparently be our last on the tough street circuit. I think it's a safe bet, though, that we'll return to New Zealand in 2013. We've got such a great fan base there and about 30 per cent of drivers, teams and crews are Kiwis. Meanwhile, most of our team are getting into Movember to support awareness of men's health issues and it will be the first time in my life I've had facial hair. It's going to be interesting. I'll keep people updated on my Twitter account which is fast approaching 10,000 followers. There will be a special gift for the 10,000th member, although I'm not sure yet what it will be.

The battery-powered Commodore is the first of seven being built by EV Engineering in Melbourne. Chief engineer Tim Olding, who spent 19 years with Holden, says the first test car is completed and would conclude validation testing by February. It will be joined in June by six more test cars built as a "proof of concept project to demonstrate technical viability". The eight-year project is a partnership with companies specialising in electronics, charging infrastructure and fleet vehicles and has been partly funded by a $3.5m government grant under the now-axed Green Car Innovation Fun. Olding says they have also received assistance from Holden but "no promises". "Holden gave us all the CAD (computer-aided design) for the base vehicle, access with their engineers to make the car function in the same way and access to their proving ground at Lang Lang," he says. "But there have been no promises from Holden about building an electric car. This is a feasibility project to look at all the components. No promises are guaranteed." Olding also said their conversion architecture could effectively be transferred to a Ford Falcon but refused to comment on approaches to, or from, Ford or any other manufacturers. For the first time, Olding provided details of the electric car concept and the reasons for choosing the Commodore. He says the Australian car industry's strength is in large rear-wheel-drive cars and the ability to build a variety of different models from the same architecture such as sedans, wagons and utes. "It (the EV) should be able to be built on an existing production line alongside ICE (internal combustion engine) models," he says. "Rear-wheel drive is perfect for balance and for the placement of the electric powertrain." Their EV Commodore concept replaces the Commodore's engine and transmission tunnel with 210 40amp-hour cells from Bosch; the same as used in BMW's electric concept cars. Olding says the modules can be built into the unusual engine/transmission tunnel shape. The fuel tank is replaced by the power electrics module and the differential is replaced by the electric motor and gearbox between the rear suspension. "Even the upcoming Tesla Model S has a similar configuration," he says. "There should be no major change to the engineering; that's the key component. This is the most cost-effective way to make an EV in Australia. "They should cost about the same as an ICE car, plus the cost of the battery." Olding says the battery is anchored with quick-release connections so it can be swapped easily to alleviate anxiety over the estimated 160km range. The car would also be chargeable from a home mains output. EV Engineering's consortium includes Bosch, Continental, Futuris, Better Place, Air International and GE, one of the largest owners of feet vehicles in Australia. The consortium is headed by Rob McEniry, former CEO of Mitsubishi Motors Australia. Olding says GE will help conduct testing over the next two years. However, he says it is also feasible that an EV car could be produced for public sale before the official end of testing. While Holden has no current plans for an EV Commodore, it will release the Volt next year which has an electric motor with a small petrol-powered "range extender" motor.

The tiny device that led to Peter Brock's sacking from Holden in the 1980s is back on a Commodore and heading for the road. An Energy Polarizer identical to the eighties originals - and built once again by Bev Brock - is part of the package on a new homage car from HDT Special Vehicles. The VL Retro Plus Pack Commodore is unveiled this week and company owner Peter Champion, a personal friend of the late race ace and owner of 45 Brock cars, says he has plans to build up to 250 cars in the series. The unveiling at Eastern Creek Raceway in Sydney includes a side-by- side display of the 2011 car and the HDT Director that triggered the split between Brock and Holden. The carmaker demanded that Brock remove the Energy Polarizer or it would not sanction the car while Brock said he would not build the car without a Polarizer. Brock was out in the cold for more than a decade, even racing BMWs and Fords during his exile, before being reconciled with Holden for the final phase of his motorsport career and his final Bathurst starts including his final event at Mount Panorama with the Holden Racing Team. The VL Retro is the latest in a series of homage models from HDT Special Vehicles, a company that Champion bought originally to close but then rebuilt under a new business model. It has created three previous retro models and even builds hotrod Commodores with supercharged 7.0-litre V8 engines and pricetags topping $150,000. "The VL retro is the fourth car in the series. We've had the VC, VH, the Blue Meanie and now we have this one," says Champion. "This car marks 25 years since Peter got the bullet. It is great to have it alongside the Director. A total of nine directors were built and mine is the one he actually unveiled." Champion says the Polarizer-equipped VL Retro is his idea and he always planned to have it with the device, which Brock said harnessed Orgone Energy to align the molecules in a vehicle. "The VL SS is probably the the most popular HDT car that Brock built,"  he says. "The Polarizer was my idea. The reason for that is that I couldn't do a VL Group A without it being a Plus Pack. And you have to do it with a Polarizer for it to be a Plus Pack car." The project has backing from Bev Brock, who retains a few original Polarizers and is happy to make new ones for the Champion cars. The VL Retro is based on a current VE Commodore, like the other models in the HDT Special Vehicles lineup, and owners must first buy a donor SS from Holden before it is converted. The work includes everything from a special body kit and mechanical upgrades to a re-spray in the Retro red colour. Champion says the VL Retro is the end of the road for the current HDT lineup, but not the finish for the company. "We've come a long way in three years," he tells Carsguide. "This is the last of the Brock Heritage series. Then we're going to start on our new ones, the Champion series."

Married with a daughter (who is also a Ford fan), Mr Watson currently has an FPV GT 335 sedan, the latest in a long line of Ford products."We have had around 20 Fords - various models, not just Falcons - after some Holdens. We have had many Fords, one has followed the other ever since and we have no plans to change camps," he says.Mr Watson looks at the red versus blue rivalry as something that is now generational. "When it started it was Moffat versus Brock and has grown since then to have people either red or blue, now we're talking second and third generation fans as children follow their parents," he says.The family has had an FPV GT since April - the supercharged 335kW version - and now wouldn't have anything else. "I absolutely love it, the supercharged V8 has plenty of power - we use it for normal road work, not track days, we don't push it that hard, but it has plenty of poke for overtaking," he says."We're also restoring an old XB Falcon - a full bare-metal restoration - with 393 stroker V8, that will sit proudly next to the new GT," he says.A big shed and a tolerant wife are two key ingredients to Daryl Leaker's impressive stable of Holden product. The 1998 HSV Senator Signature 220i shares garage space with a number of Holden, HSV and HDT machines."I've got a very big shed for them all, I've always liked Holdens because my father was a Holden salesman so it is in the blood I guess," he says.Mr Leaker hasn't always just owned Holdens - a Mitsubishi Pajero replaced a Ford Territory recently, but there balance of power has always been to the General, harking back to his formative years with a Holden salesman for a father."It was great when Dad was selling Holdens, I got to drive GTR XU-1s and 327 Monaros when they were brand new," he says. "When I turned 21 I bought myself an HQ GTS coupe and got some discount through my father, I wish I still had that car as well."The HSV shares shed space with a VN SS Group A and an HSV Statesman, as well as a HDT VK Brock Commodore SS in silver and an HJ Monaro four-door."I'll always be a Holden fan - I think I'd die of shock if the missus came home in an FPV GT," he says.