The models that could have saved Holden? - including a VF SUV..

[tml678]

As a former GMH employee (engineering), the above SUV was never pened by GMH design. Purely a media stunt by wheels/motor. I did see a VE & VF Adventura design/model based off the sportwagon that could of been built down the elizabeth line.

Fair enough, media misrepresentation yet again. Oh well, shoulda known..

 

[lmoengnr]

Heck, even a TT V6 in a commodore would have been something

Why not a TT V8, like the 4.2 Cadillac powerplant?

 

[3rspecB]

Fair enough, media misrepresentation yet again. Oh well, shoulda known..

I personally think it's something that GMH management should of considered as each year you could see the massive shift to SUVs but GMH senior management had their heads in the sand.

 

[Forg]

Why not a TT V8, like the 4.2 Cadillac powerplant?

I think we’re talking about back when it could have saved Holden, which would have been when the VF was released or very very shortly after. The TTV6 existed already, so coulda been a Thing in a Holden.

Despite the terrible reputation the Ford Terrortory had for reliability & quality, they sold pretty well. And Ford Oz were even more banned from exporting than Holden were. GM didn’t have anything worldwide that approached the chassis quality of a VF & which had SUV styling, they could’ve had a Cayenne or Range Rover style ‘sports SUV’ on their hands, and most people are really really really dumb so wouldn’t have realised they were paying ~$20k extra for something which cost no more than a Chev SS to build.
Despite SUV’s being terrible for their operators AND the world, I think being allowed to build & sell & export one could have made Holden too profitable to shut down.

As a former GMH employee (engineering), the above SUV was never pened by GMH design.

Given Terrortory’s success locally, I find it hard to believe Holden never considered doing something similar with Zeta.
The picture may be a Wheels mag comgen, but I don’t believe a company searching for product to allow it’s survival wouldn’t have considered the most profitable market segment.

 

[Skylarking]

... I think being allowed to build & sell & export one could have made Holden too profitable to shut down...

Expressed another way, Holden would have made the GM managers look like muppets, being that a small pissant of a company could build sell and do such profitable things, so they hamstrung them

Imaging if a company like Nokia had their managers stop that wasteful phone experiment and continued to sell paper and rubber products. Yep, Nokia would have now made a killing on toilet paper

 

[Big Red VF-SII Go-kart]

If people were not buying SV6 wagons and sedans in whatever incarnation, in droves, what makes people think they'd go for a boldly upscaled SV6 (yeah, a 6 cylinder) dressed up as a SUV? People wanted smaller cars and engines, but Holden didn't quire cotton-on to the market forces at work. Nor did Ford. Enter the South Korean and Chinese, and the game was irreversibly changed
Holden was still cobbling together V6s while this seismic change was proceeding apace. The big V6s are now the preserve of cashed-up tradies.

In the end, it's much like an event decades ago...

"Well...May we say "God save the Queen",
Because nothing will save Holden Australia! "

(Paraphrased with respectful apologies to the late Gough Whitlam and his memorable retort for Kerr, 1975.)

 

[Fu Manchu]

but what do you mean? Holden have the ZB, the 2 litre turbo model that is the best thing since sliced bread. Just ask @Tessa's ZB!

 

[Forg]

If people were not buying SV6 wagons and sedans in whatever incarnation, in droves, what makes people think they'd go for a boldly upscaled SV6 (yeah, a 6 cylinder) dressed up as a SUV? People wanted smaller cars and engines, but Holden didn't quire cotton-on to the market forces at work.

Gerlytrux are selling gangbusters, Terrortory sold gangbusters; but Ford wasn’t allowed to sell in other markets, and no one model sells enough to justify a plant to sell solely to Australia.

People may pay lip service to “smaller cars and engines”, then they buy overweight lumps that aren’t even roomy, like the 2 tonne Audi Q5 that’s Golf sized. CX3’s that weigh as much as a Mazda6 but have less room than a Mazda3, RAV4’s that are Corolla based/sized but weigh & use fuel like a Camry, etc.

 

[Calaber]

I think Holdens problems started once Hanenberger retired. He was the driving force behind the vast array of bodystyle on the basic VT platform and he was strong willed and determined for Holden to succeed as an exporter. His successors were GM lackeys who kissed Detroit's arse and lacked any affinity with what the brand meant to Oz. Simultaneously, the company was locked into the Zeta program which initially held great promise for the company. We know the GFC screwed those plans, but instead of a Hanenberger, we had sycophants who had no hesitation in doing GM's bidding instead of fighting for the company.
A third problem was the fact that US unions wouldn't permit large scale importation of vehicles that were clearly superior to their home grown cars. Allied with this was the GM policy of exporting US built cars in preference to Holdens, and labelling the few thousand export Holdens as Chevrolet everywhere except NZ. They never gave the company a chance to establish its credentials overseas.
I have no doubt that the future of the company could have been better if an SUV, developed to the same level as the VE, had been released instead of a sedan. Love them or hate them, who knows how much better a well engineered SUV might have sold here and overseas?

 

[Immortality]

I'm sure the VE Ute would have gone over well in the US but never saw the light of the day in the US until GM used it as a test bed for the C8...