The car that killed Holden in Australia, so they say.

[the_boozer]

Before you start saying they got free money, look how they had to earn that money investing in Australia. GM contributed a lot to the Asutralian car industry and paid taxes too

What did they do this century? They didn't pay any tax by the time the $50k for each worker was paid.
How much did they sell the land Fishermans Bend was on for? The Dandenong plant how much did they sell that for? They bleed us dry and run away.

 

[Commo64]

Holden did poorly in the commercial vehicle market. Commodores back in the early 2000's were also very unreliable, which I have no doubt pushed people towards Toyota.
To say the Captiva alone killed Holden is stupid. Barina, Astra, Colorado were all seen as offering little value for money compared to a Camry, Hyundai or Hilux. Even the Ford Territory, which you hardly ever see on the road anymore, sold quite well.
Last, but not least, Toyota absolutely obliterated the 4WD market with its Land Cruiser.

Agreed, many Holden products had a lot of recalls when they were new, which didn't help the perception of quality... Though when talking Commodores, I'd argue that the overall quality somewhat improved in the 2000's, as the 80's and 90's Commodores suffered terribly from things like rust, even when fairly new...

 

[Commo64]

What did they do this century? They didn't pay any tax by the time the $50k for each worker was paid.
How much did they sell the land Fishermans Bend was on for? The Dandenong plant how much did they sell that for? They bleed us dry and run away.

Unfortunately that's the way business works, and all businesses number 1 objective is to maximise profits and reduce expenses...

 

[OldBomb]

used to work at the auctions til 2008. 90% of our cars were ex rentals, so it gives you some idea about reliability. the 5.7 V8 (LS1) was a good engine, but the early alloytech commodores had all sorts of issues. whether Ford just hid it better, the commodores always seemed to have some fault warning or another on the dash

 

[Anthony121]

What did they do this century? They didn't pay any tax by the time the $50k for each worker was paid.
How much did they sell the land Fishermans Bend was on for? The Dandenong plant how much did they sell that for? They bleed us dry and run away.

It's not always about paying tax. It was investing in this country by doing work globally for GM. Lang Lang was testing GM vehicles worldwide. As for the plants, yeah GM did ok with the sale of all the land they had here....

 

[Commo64]

used to work at the auctions til 2008. 90% of our cars were ex rentals, so it gives you some idea about reliability. the 5.7 V8 (LS1) was a good engine, but the early alloytech commodores had all sorts of issues. whether Ford just hid it better, the commodores always seemed to have some fault warning or another on the dash

Ford's have there issues as well, especially the transmissions which just don't hold up as well as Holdens... Also, the Falcon looks and feels like a boat when compared to Commodores...

 

[Immortality]

What did they do this century? They didn't pay any tax by the time the $50k for each worker was paid.
How much did they sell the land Fishermans Bend was on for? The Dandenong plant how much did they sell that for? They bleed us dry and run away.

I do agree that Aussie should have had the right to buy back land and the name at bargain basement prices from GM.

 

[vc commodore]

What did they do this century? They didn't pay any tax by the time the $50k for each worker was paid.
How much did they sell the land Fishermans Bend was on for? The Dandenong plant how much did they sell that for? They bleed us dry and run away.

$50K per worker.....You made me spit my coffee out.....

Back in 1994, starting salary was $900 p/w and went up from there......Guaranteed, it was a shed load more than $50K by the time they shut their doors

 

[Commo64]

They didn't pay any tax by the time the $50k for each worker was paid.

This isn't a GM issue alone... Most companies here in Australia don't pay their taxes so they can provide jobs to Aussies and sell things at a competitive price... If the government suddenly made them pay all of their taxes, everybody will be shutting down their Australian subsidiaries...

 

[vc commodore]

Before you start saying they got free money, look how they had to earn that money investing in Australia. GM contributed a lot to the Asutralian car industry and paid taxes too. It even employed a few thousand Aussies. Like other comments above, there are govt assistance for many industries which some we don't know about.

I used to work at a tyre shop near Holdens plant back in the early 2000's....Businesses round there did a roaring trade from employees of that plant.....So yes, there was a good spin off to the gov't funding the plant