But that's because they looked at the cost of providing something like that vs the return, and so few people took it up that they decided it was better to reduce every single car's RRP in order to sell more of the everycar.
If you'd been quoted what it really cost them to do what they did for you, including setting up the ordering stuff & the ability for the HSDV production-line to do variations etc, you'd not have taken-up the offer 'cos it'd have been so much more than $2k ... and they'd have spent all that prep money for nothing 'cos nobody'd have taken it up.
You can't get anything like that from any manufacturer these days, it's part of why cars are currently the cheapest they've been since the ... early 70's I think it was?
Part of my employment history includes a manufacturing background and many companies offer variations at a customers request without advertising it and of course the customer pays for those changes and no the company doesn't adsorb the cost, the customer pays all the way.
In the case of vehicle manufacturers there are companies that cater for their customers individual taste and you pay through the nose for it.
I purchased a new Merc not so long ago and I understand it's a completely different price point but I could have bespoked it to death and of course ended up with a bill the size of the national debit. I declined because I was happy with the car the way it was except for the electronic diff but there are customers that do take up the bespoke service. In the case of the electronic diff a mechanical LSD was offered as a accessory and I chose it.
The last BMW I purchased for my wife was bespoked and it added close to $20,000 to the price but it was what she wanted or maybe the truth is more what I felt she wanted. There was a change to the type of leather used, a change to the tune and to the audio which weren't available as an accessories but were offered as part of bespoking during manufacture. Then I had changes made to the materials used in a number of cosmetic parts such as the grille, spoiler and interior trim which were offered as accessories or variations at a cost. You could buy the base finish which most customers do but you weren't locked into it if you wished to make changes.
I'm not saying Holden could afford to do that but pointing out it is available in the industry.
The ability for Holden to provide a manual trans in a wagon that had already been offered and was available in other variants was doable and the cost incurred could easily be transferred to the customer and it's the customers choice as to whether they felt the addition cost was worth the desire to go manual over auto.
They didn't fail to do anything that any other manufacturer managed ... they were just too small to do the required numbers, is all. They had rubbish SUV's like everyone else, they had small cars, they had medum cars, they had dual-cabs. OK towards the end the GM product was awful & what wasn't awful people were scared to buy 'cos nobody else was buying them; but during the noughties & oneties, Holden had products that covered the new-normal of everything selling a little bit rather than the 50's-90's standard of the family sedan/wagon getting the lion's share of new vehicle sales.
My thoughts on Holden missing the boat was the vehicles they were offering in the 2000's were being left behind for the spec you could get for your money compared to the rapidly improving Asian products.
The VE was a good example of a great car design that was let down by it's lack of tech and consumer comforts compared to other vehicles on the market.
When I asked friends and co-workers why they had bought the car they did instead of their usual Holden or Ford, I lost count of how many would say I get a lot more for my money in the Asian car then I get in a Holden.
In fact if the VE hadn't been available with an affordable V8 it would have be left behind much quicker than it eventually was and trying to correct the problem around the time of the release of the VF and VF2 was too late, the customer base had already well and truly bolted.
And these days as far as performance goes some of the current entry level performance AMG's, M & RS cars are a real hoot for the price, they may not be very family orientated but everyone except for me has a SUV of some type parked in their driveways these day for those duties anyway.
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