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Genuine VF HSV wheels at dealer/cost price

Forg

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They bought those cars because of the 'oil crisis'.
Dropped a heap of money trading Kingswoods and Falcons, so they could get 30mpg instead of 20mpg.
Dunno, most 2nd family cars were something that’d fit Mum and the 2.3 kids but not the whole family+luggage … Lasers, Geminis, Corollas, 323’s. Long, long after the ‘oil crisis’ had gone away; replaced by the occasional people-mover when those became popular, but then gerlytrux started infesting from the late 80’s to early 90’s.
 

panhead

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My wife went the other way from a VE2 SS wagon to BMW X3 M40i at nearly twice the price of a VF Redline wagon. The Cheap SUV's compared with her VE were junk she thought and a took a BMW to match or better the V8 Commodore dynamics she was use to driving. Was the VF2 a good car?, I like them as do most of us here!

I bought my wife a VE Calais V and was kind enough to surprise her by getting the V8 version and fitted it with 20 inch rims and drop it on it's guts and she hated from day one.

After less then a year she had a BMW and I decided after that not to get involved in her car purchasing requirements ever again.

Most of my friends who would had normally purchased Falcons or Commodores stopped choosing them in the mid 2000's and not because they thought they were a bad car, but because the Asian brands hitting the market were offering or at least they were perceived too be offering a lot more creature comforts for the same or less price then Holden and Ford.

Most people don't care about what's under the skin of their vehicles, they just want the new tech and Holden and Ford dropped the ball for a while and when they tried to catch up the market had changed its taste.

I kept buying the Aussie product because it was the cheapest way to get into a V8 but my friends who didn't care for that had moved on and found they liked the Asian product and never came back to the Aussie stuff.

That's one small take on a multitude of reasons why Ford and Holden no longer exist.

Then the SUV revolution began.........




.
 

RevNev

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Most of my friends who would had normally purchased Falcons or Commodores stopped choosing them in the mid 2000's and not because they thought they were a bad car, but because the Asian brands hitting the market were offering or at least they were perceived too be offering a lot more creature comforts for the same or less price then Holden and Ford.

Most people don't care about what's under the skin of their vehicles, they just want the new tech and Holden and Ford dropped the ball for a while and when they tried to catch up the market had changed its taste.

I kept buying the Aussie product because it was the cheapest way to get into a V8 but my friends who didn't care for that had moved on and found they liked the Asian product and never came back to the Aussie stuff.

I hate transverse engines and front wheel drive cars and reminds me of an Austin 1800 and I'd never buy one, so the Asian cars to me were junk. A "proper" car is rear wheel drive preferably with a V8 under the bonnet, but many of my friends didn't share my passion and defected to the Asian brands, better features for less. The V8 Holden stereo system with chrome tips that poke out under the back bumper was the "tech" I liked the most!

In 1979, I bought an HQ 4 door Monaro was the best V8 I could afford and got addicted them with a habit I still can't kick 43 years later! I defected to a white XD 351 Falcon ex-cop car for a couple of years in the early 80's when the Monaro became cop bait after I got caught drag racing doing 161 kmph in an 80 zone. It was $150 fine, $1.50 court fee and lost my licence for 6 months no big deal then. I wouldn't like to get caught doing that today! From 1985 I bought a VK 308 ex-cop car and V8's have been Holden ever since.
 
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Skylarking

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I hate transverse engines and front wheel drive cars and reminds me of an Austin 1800 and I'd never buy one, so the Asian cars to me were junk.
Yeah I can understand your opinion is that Asian cars are junk but you can’t really call todays Honda Civic Type R junk from a performance perspective given it did 7:34 around the Nürburgring track as compared to the commodore ute‘s 8:19 … just saying…

Disclaimer, I don’t like the look of the type R myself but I wouldn’t call it junk… some good engineering in that little front drive unit :p
 

mpower

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Yeah I can understand your opinion is that Asian cars are junk but you can’t really call todays Honda Civic Type R junk from a performance perspective given it did 7:34 around the Nürburgring track as compared to the commodore ute‘s 8:19 … just saying…

Disclaimer, I don’t like the look of the type R myself but I wouldn’t call it junk… some good engineering in that little front drive unit :p

because

 

RevNev

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Yeah I can understand your opinion is that Asian cars are junk but you can’t really call todays Honda Civic Type R junk from a performance perspective given it did 7:34 around the Nürburgring track as compared to the commodore ute‘s 8:19 … just saying…

Disclaimer, I don’t like the look of the type R myself but I wouldn’t call it junk… some good engineering in that little front drive unit :p
M3/M4 BMW's dominate production car racing and I've never seen Honda's top the time sheets to look at them. Commodore's aren't good on a race track stock and take some work to get them fast today, but Holden in the Brock days dominated in motorsport where the passion ignites. Mini's were fast in the old days but didn't rattle your chain like an HK Monaro!

As far as Asian cars (rice burners), all they were good for was picking up parts for your "real car". You couldn't roll up in a rice burner among Holden and Ford enthusiasts and say it's yours, steady on!, it's my mum or sister's car mate!
 

Skylarking

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M3/M4 BMW's dominate production car racing and I've never seen Honda's top the time sheets to look at them. Commodore's aren't good on a race track stock and take some work to get them fast today, but Holden in the Brock days dominated in motorsport where the passion ignites. Mini's were fast in the old days but didn't rattle your chain like an HK Monaro!

As far as Asian cars (rice burners), all they were good for was picking up parts for your "real car". You couldn't roll up in a rice burner among Holden and Ford enthusiasts and say it's yours, steady on!, it's my mum or sister's car mate!
Yeah production car racing and who's winning is something which most people actually don't care about. And i care less each year.

It's just like most people don't care about past commodores and past racing wins. It's just the daily slog to work and what they sit in which interests them...

Soon it will be that paid "influencers" will replaces car racing as the thing which helps people to choose their ride... Then electrification will turn them our cars into appliences :confused: It's all sad really...

But it's still just your opinion that rice burners are junk and you dont have to justify it to me just as I don't have to justify what i like to you :p

Me, I don't like that the masses seem to love their SUV's these days and they are clogging the road with 2.5t monstrosities with race stripes to make them go faster :rolleyes: It is what it is :p
 

vc commodore

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I might have misheard a recent advert for the new MG, but it is a combination of Electric and petrol powered....
 

RevNev

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Yeah production car racing and who's winning is something which most people actually don't care about. And i care less each year.

It's just like most people don't care about past commodores and past racing wins. It's just the daily slog to work and what they sit in which interests them...

Soon it will be that paid "influencers" will replaces car racing as the thing which helps people to choose their ride... Then electrification will turn them our cars into appliences :confused: It's all sad really...

But it's still just your opinion that rice burners are junk and you dont have to justify it to me just as I don't have to justify what i like to you :p

Me, I don't like that the masses seem to love their SUV's these days and they are clogging the road with 2.5t monstrosities with race stripes to make them go faster :rolleyes: It is what it is :p
Opinions on cars depends where the enthusiasm stems from, what ignited the passion and the features that mean something to someone. Front wheel drives you can't throw sideways and steer them with accelerator pedal like a rear wheel drive and if you've enjoyed doing that or the sensation of it, front wheel drives will never tick your box. The Asian brands didn't accommodate that much in a V8 other than a couple of Lexus models. BMW and Mercedes did and still do albeit with a price tag and Ford's Mustang but it's there if you want it nonetheless. The other issue with front wheel drives is the car can't be optimised dynamically with too much weight over the front axle so the design is performance compromised. If you're into design optimisation, front wheel drives won't tick that box either.

Production car racing proves what works best speed and reliability wise when pushed to the limit of performance, same with drag racing production cars if you're into that. Most who buy fast cars on a race circuit or fast cars on the quarter mile never use or test it but it's the inspiration of it that encourages them to write a cheque and buy it. The only "rice burner" that had performance credibility in my early days among car enthusiasts was the Datsun 1600 that did well in rallies, but the rest were mum shopping trolleys and underpowered junk.

I don't like SUV's much and the reason my wife bought one was they're easy to get in and out of. She got cleaned up in her VN SS in '94, someone ran a red light and hit it in the B pillar and being short with the seat forward, the B pillar hit the back of the seat not her body fortunately, but did injure her back and neck she never fully recovered from. That made it harder for her to get in and out of low cars with bolstered seats as she got older. The SUV's the right height for her to get in and out painlessly she discovered and ticked the box she preferred.

In the late '90's to mid 2000's we raced rice burners in Improved Production racing and beat them in a VR Commodore with a 640hp 358ci Holden V8 and Holinger gearbox. We had the lap record in that Commodore against Nissan Skylines, Silvia's WRX's Evo Lancers, Mazda RX7's. The fastest Improved Production cars today are a couple of 6 litre LS Monaro's and a BF Falcon V8!
 
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Forg

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I might have misheard a recent advert for the new MG, but it is a combination of Electric and petrol powered....
CCP junk they are; but yes you can get EV ones as well as petrol ones, I doubt they're sophisticated enough to get a hybrid to work.

Opinions on cars depends where the enthusiasm stems from, what ignited the passion and the features that mean something to someone. Front wheel drives you can't throw sideways and steer them with accelerator pedal like a rear wheel drive and if you've enjoyed doing that or the sensation of it, front wheel drives will never tick your box.
I've emboldened the relevant bit ... a properly set-up FWD car you can throw sideways and steer with the accelerator pedal, you just can't do it in the same way as a RWD car. :)

I was never a real big fan of Australian cars while growing up, they were "archaic & unreliable". They weren't as unreliable as I thought they were, I now realise with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight (I mean they were no match for a Toyota or Honda or even mid 80's Nissan - but nowhere near as bad as I thought they were), but they WERE all kinds of archaic.
 
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