Holden puts the finishing touches to Australia's next-generation NG Commodore

[Calaber]

i can safely say one will never darken my driveway. They should have called it the "Edsel"

Nah. Already tried and failed. I still think they are relying on the name to maintain a high profile for the new model. I think they also recognise that sales will be far less than traditional Commodore and they will have to basically re-market the car from day 1. I reckon the thinking is that a completely new model with a recognised name will be easier to sell.

Malibu was a new model and new name and we all know how that went.

 

[mpower]

Malibu was also a pile of garbage.

 

[Calaber]

Malibu was also a pile of garbage.

It did nothing that most of its competitors didn't do better and its appearance was mundane. It had nothing in its favour. Even the Holden badge couldn't raise the stakes. A dead set dud.

 

[commodore665]

It did nothing that most of its competitors didn't do better and its appearance was mundane. It had nothing in its favour. Even the Holden badge couldn't raise the stakes. A dead set dud.

absolutely , it was a vanilla sponge , with no filling or icing , just there to fill a gap in the market , and it didn't even manage that successfully .

 

[mpower]

It did nothing that most of its competitors didn't do better and its appearance was mundane. It had nothing in its favour. Even the Holden badge couldn't raise the stakes. A dead set dud.

they should have rolled straight off the production line into a crusher.

 

[Calaber]

they should have rolled straight off the production line into a crusher.

Can't argue with that but the new model which I saw a lot of in Hawaii recently is quite a decent looking car. Can't comment on it's performance though.

 

[zero_tolerance]

It did nothing that most of its competitors didn't do better and its appearance was mundane. It had nothing in its favour. Even the Holden badge couldn't raise the stakes. A dead set dud.

Yep, the Malibu and various other Daewoo garbage did nothing but tarnish Holden's image. Why they went ahead and sold these vehicles in Australia is beyond me when even blind freddy could see they were a failure.

 

[Calaber]

I think one of Holden's (or GM's) worst decisions was to terminate selling small Euro sourced cars and replace them with seriously deficient Daewoos, thinking that buyers would be taken in by the cheap prices. It tarnished the Holden Brand seriously.

The decision was based on Australia's poor exchange rate against the Euro at the time which meant the Opels couldn't be sold here at competitive prices, yet around that time, Ford ceased Asian sourced small cars and returned to Euro built cars.

 

[Brettly-2008]

As far as Malibu is concerned, why does it need to be exciting? It's a middle-of-the-range appliance that suits certain buyers and not others. Toyota, Nissan (don't get me started) Mitsubishi etc... Mazda being the only other non-euro manufacturer to offer something 'edgy'. I've been in a Malibu quite a bit lately and actually rate its use of interior lighting design. I also think Holden should have looked a bit harder at Malibu's Camaro-style tail light style for VF... But that's just me, other than that there was not much else that would make me want to buy one. But I didn't hate it either.

As far as NG is concerned, I reckon it will be a great car to drive, and it looks decent to me, but the big appeal for Commodores of old was that tangible link to the big hitting HSV/Bathurst/Halo SS models. For me growing up, Commodores - even base models - had the mystique of being engineered to at least cope with high end performance and racing, and could be easily modified as such. They always offered underdog performance and durability. Sales of SV6s kind of prove this. The concept of a frugal Commodore is admirable, but if that's your main goal, you'll buy something else surely?.

En masse, I'm not really sure who the NG customer is.

 

[Calaber]

The Malibu's problem wasn't that it was a bad car. It just didn't stand out from its competitors, wasn't really superior to them in any significant manner and was lost in the crowd of similar cars in a diminishing market. Even cars like the Mazda 6, which IS better than the Malibu, have lost sales in recent years.

I think the ZB is going to get a mixed reception. It won't appeal to most of the enthusiasts on this forum because it has no V8 option, it's FWD and it's imported. Personally, I think the fact that it's FWD is of absolutely no concern to the vast majority of car buyers because most cars are designed that way now and it hasn't stopped sales increasing.

As for its potential market, we all know it will never reach the sort of numbers Commodores used to sell in. But will it improve the present numbers? Commies are now selling at less than 2,000 per month. This could be due to diminishing interest in that particular car because it's about to cease production, general lack of interest in large cars or reduced production numbers as termination approaches.

The car could appeal to people who haven't been Commodore buyers and some older traditional Holden customers but due to the changes in buyer tastes in the past decade, I seriously doubt that sales will exceed 30 - 35 thousand a year. Of course, Holden might be very satisfied with those numbers.