Holden Viva 2009 News

For the third time in 2010 - but not the last - the team at Holden Design has created a show star for General Motors. Actually, there are two at Auto China 2010, one from fantasyland and the other potentially from tomorrow land.The EN-V is a pure dream machine, created to showcase the potential for individual city transport systems and to star in the GM pavilion at the World Expo in Beijing from next month, but the Volt MPV5 could easily become a showroom reality.The Chinese concepts follow the Chevrolet Aveo concept, which was designed and built by the Holden crew as a teaser for the all-new Holden Barina and unveiled at the Detroit Motor Show in January."A lot of the concept cars are now done in Australia," says Kevin Wale, himself a transplanted Australian who is president of GM China. "They have got capability there. That's part of the global design process, to find out where the best designers are in the world and then allocate the work to them."This time the EN-V and MPV5 concepts were designed outside Australia but then built at Fishermans Bend, where the advanced styling studio has the capacity to handle all the work from a computer sketch to a running car. "With today's 24-hour instant data transmission, it doesn't matter where you sit. You get the best input from the best designers. They will just put the work where it is needed," says Wale.It's an approach which worked brilliantly for the Chevrolet Camaro, which was designed as a coupe and convertible in Australia for production and sales in the USA. The MPV5 show car is the first significant stretch of the mechanical package beneath the Chevrolet Volt sedan, the extended-range hybrid which will eventually join the Holden showroom range in Australia.The mini people mover is longer and wider than the sedan and is intended to show what can be done with the hybrid powertrain for different countries. It's not particularly adventurous in design but shows the potential in the Volt package.It also shows the capability in Fishermans Bend and hints at what could be coming before the end of the year, most likely at the Paris Motor Show in October. Holden designers have done the job for GM once before at the French event, creating a race-style concept - the WTCC Ultra - which previewed a small Daewoo hatch called the Holden Viva.Wale says more and more design work is being done in Fishermans Bend because it is recognised as a global asset at GM. "A few years ago they went and hired a lot more designers. They are building up quite an international reputation," Wale says.

An accelerating Korean auto industry is now within a car's length of equalling sales of our home-grown models.  According to the official car sales figures for October released last week Korean vehicle sales in Australia were up 80 per cent compared to October 2008 and up 23 per cent for the year so far compared to the same period in 2008.Sales of Korean-made cars (12,324) nearly equalled the total sales of all Australian manufacturers (12,822) for the month.  Nearly 20,000 more Korean-made cars have been sold in Australia this year than in the same time last year.  By comparison, locally-built cars are down by 24,594 units, a drop of 17 per cent.Hyundai is leading the way, recording its best-ever October result in Australia, up by 106 per cent over October 2008, and is our fourth biggest-selling carmaker behind Toyota, Holden and Ford.  It's not only Hyundai and Kia that are raising the profile of Korea.The Holden-badged models of Captiva, Cruze, Barina, Viva and Epica are made by GM-Daewoo in Korea. The Renault Koleos is made by Samsung in Korea and Ssangyong SUVs are from a Korean plant.  About 39 per cent of light cars sold in Australia, 27 per cent of small cars and 26 per cent of medium-sized SUVs - including Australia's most popular SUV, the Holden Captiva - are built in Korea.A Hyundai spokesman said: "We are now on the shopping list. There was a time when we weren't but we have won awards - such as the Carsguide Car of the Year in 2007 - which has made people really notice us.  We didn't take our foot off the accelerator when the recession started late last year.  We didn't reduce production and we didn't spend less on marketing. That worked in our favour because people saw us as being constant."Overall car sales in Australia were up in October for the first time in 16 months.  Improvements were across the board covering private, business and rental buyers.  Sales of vans and Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) were particularly strong.And the situation is set to improve when import tariffs drop 5 per cent from January 1.  Some importers, including Mazda and Subaru, have already passed on savings.

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.Except, of course, taxpayers forking out to subsidise the building of cars they themselves don’t want is not exactly news in this country.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 moneyYes, 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.

A new Holden compact contender will emerge from South Korea next year. The next Holden Viva has already been previewed, through the Chevrolet WTCC concept, and is being finalised for production. The Viva is part of a global plan to centralise development of two General Motors products, its mini and small cars, in South Korea at GM Daewoo. It parallels the large rear-drive operation in Australia that has already produced the VE Commodore, Pontiac G8 and the forthcoming Chevrolet Camaro coupe. The difference is the Viva is the result of a truly worldwide program that will see two distinctly different vehicle lines, one to be sold under the Opel badge and the other for use by Chevrolet-Daewoo-Holden — emerge from the same product plan. “It is the first of the global architectures,” GM Asia-Pacific president Nick Reilly says. “We wanted to make sure we had an architecture that was broad enough to be able to take several brands. That basic architecture will be responsible for a Chevrolet and an Opel. “Obviously, the looks will be completely different, but even some of the specifications will be different, to meet the brand needs. The architectures are being designed with enough bandwidth to cover different specs, different cost levels and so on.” Reilly says the switch to Daewoo-built cars in Holden showrooms is working well, pointing to the improved numbers achieved by the dollar-driven South Korean Barina and the acceptance of the classier mid-sized Epica and the four-wheel drive Captiva. “I have no apologies for the products coming out of Korea. The sales would suggest that it's been successful. I'm not saying they have all been home runs, yet, but we have had some terrific success with them,” he says. But the Viva has not worked as well and Reilly hints that it is about to get a makeover. The WTCC concept is widely accepted as the style direction for the Viva, though stripped of its wild racetrack body bits.