Are VF's going to be collectables?

[J_D 2.0]

Given the option of a Commodore for small hatchback price, 99.9% would've chosen the Commodore I think.

Well that’s just not possible without a lot of government interference (tariffs and/or subsidies). A large car is always going to be more expensive than a small car.

The Commodore (along with the Falcon) were the cheapest way into the V8 market but no one cared what we had until it was gone (current used values tell you this as lots of people obviously regret not getting one 4+ years ago brand new and they are now paying brand new prices for secondhand examples).

Lets be honest though, V8 sales isn’t where it’s at and couldn’t have sustained local production by themselves, they needed good “pov pack“ sales to support local production. The BMW X3 is a fast bit of kit (I gave one a run at the lights when I first got my SSV and lost) but most people don’t really care about performance. They just want something to get form A to B that suits their lifestyle. That’s why everything now is basically diesel utes and SUVs or small hatchbacks.

Like I said before the only way the Commodore could have survived was as a global platform to provide enough volume of sedan sales to make it worthwhile. Too few people even consider large sedans in Australia now to have made local manufacturing worthwhile.

 

[panhead]

The VE/VF was good value for money considering the amount of car you got. I think the main problem was that people didn’t want family cars anymore, they wanted SUVs, soft roaders and small hatchbacks.

The only way the Commodore was going to survive was as a global car so it was an option to a bigger audience. Bob Lutz did everything the could to make this a reality for Holden but since he left every CEO of GM since then did their best to make sure Holden wouldn’t succeed in the American market.

I don't believe the VE was good value for money as an all round family car, it was far from it.

Disregarding that people's opinions on what constituted a family car was changing around the time of it's release, it's biggest downfall was the Asian brands were filling their vehicles up with in-car tech and trickery at cheap prices and mum's and dad's were going for it.

The bare-boned cabins of the early VE's were a real turn off and it wasn't until the VF that Holden start to address that area and by then the horse had bolted.

The one big plus the VE/VF offered was an affordable V8 and for me that is the only reason I purchased 6 of them.

But offering a V8's alone wasn't enough to keep them viable.

Most of my friends who moved to SUV's weren't interested in V8's and of the few who were, they weren't prepared to pay the perceived running costs or it was better to keep the wife happy with an easy to live with, sit up high SUV.

That's a simplistic few but it's always been my take on why the Commodore lost favour with the general public.

Like it or not, the general public are A to B'ers and don't give a stuff about handling, acceleration or presence but they do care about Apple CarPlay.




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[Forg]

That wasn't my experience asking previous Commodore owners why they bought something different, it was about cost primarily and my wife was one of them. She drove V8 Commodore's from 1989 beginning with a VL ex cop car and she then had a VN SS, VS SS, VZ SS, VE SS and in 2015, she bought a Mazda 3 hatch because it was 26k and she didn't need to spend 55k on a VF SS. The Mazda lasted nearly 3 years and she hated it and she ended up at the BMW shop looking at SUV's. Telling the salesman she had V8 Commodore's for 26 years, he gave her an X3 M40i demo to drive around for a few hours, a 6 cylinder turbo that does 0-100kmph in 4.8 seconds. To cut a long story short, this accelerated like a V8 Commodore and smashed the other SUV's she test drove at all levels and she bought one. So her 3 year stint driving junk didn't work for her.

An X3 is junk compared to a Mazda3 ... Mazda3 will even still be working out of warranty!

They could've done a Captiva with an LSA engine and given the Jeep Trackhawk a run!

It would've folded in half ...

Most of my friends who moved to SUV's weren't interested in V8's and of the few who were, they weren't prepared to pay the perceived running costs or it was better to keep the wife happy with an easy to live with, sit up high SUV.

Fashion.
People so lots of really stupid **** in the name of fashion, subjecting themselves to operating an SUV is among the most common expensive fashion-related poor choices people make.

 

[panhead]

Fashion.
People so lots of really stupid **** in the name of fashion, subjecting themselves to operating an SUV is among the most common expensive fashion-related poor choices people make.

Agreed, similar to modding a road driven V8 powered car to be faster with restricted speed limits in place.

What are people thinking?

Horses for courses I guess.





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[Forg]

Agreed, similar to modding a road driven V8 powered car to be faster with restricted speed limits in place.

What are people thinking?

Yeah but doing that doesn't fück over every road user that doesn't escalate to a gerlytruk themselves ... plus it's not the awful driving experience that operating the gerlytruk is.