The news of the Holden brand being abandoned by General Motors is not entirely surprising given the company’s decision to cease manufacturing vehicles in Australia in October 2017. Indeed, the writing was on the wall a few months ago when Holden announced it was killing off the Commodore brand.
But despite all signs pointing to the Holden brand being sent to the great scrap heap in the sky, it still hurts that it’s come to this. Come the end of this year, the Holden brand will go the way of other vehicle brands such as Saab, Rover and Pontiac. But, in another way, the brand will live on.
Out of every automobile company that used to manufacture cars in this country, Holden held the closest relationship with Australians. Sure, everyone knew the parent company was General Motors. But, unlike Ford, which universally applied its blue oval badge to all of its cars, regardless of where they were made, Holden had its own distinct branding.
It differed substantially from GM’s product lineup in the US and made us feel like it was our own.
Holden and Australia were linked, with the brand tracing back to a saddlery business in South Australia which commenced trading in 1856. It wasn’t until 1948 that Australia received its very first mass produced, locally built car. Following the end of the second World War, Australia proved it was serious about manufacturing, and the first FX Holden rolled off the production line in Port Melbourne, Victoria.
Since then, it’s been the Holden master brand that has underpinned the launch of a number of iconic, local, product brands: the FJ Holden, the Torana, the Kingswood, the Monaro, the Commodore and, who could forget, Holden’s uniquely branded panel van, the Sandman.
Australian folklore goes that Holden dealers gave buyers of Sandman panel vans the option of adding a bumper sticker to their new purchase that read: ‘If this van’s rocking, don’t bother knocking’.
Holden was more than just a car brand to Australians. It spawned a TV series called Kingswood Country featuring Ted Bullpit as a blustering, suburban father confused by the intricacies of an ever-changing world, but safe in the knowledge that as long as his trusty Kingwood was parked in the garage, everything would be okay.
It was Holden that backed a young Peter Brock to take the fight to Allan Moffat and Ford, enabling him to conquer Mount Panorama and win the Bathurst 1000 a record nine times.
It was Holden that carried Prime Ministers, Premiers, Governor-Generals and visiting dignitaries in its luxury Statesman Caprice range.
And it was Holden that built the first Aussie ute that proved to be such a hit with farmers and tradies alike.
It’s been Holden that has carried the Australian spirit, helping many of us to believe that a country located at the bottom of the world could punch above its weight.
In what proved to be a prophetic move last year, Jimmy Barnes released a single titled ‘Shutting down our town’. It’s a song about the singer growing up in the north of Adelaide and returning to his hometown to find Holden was ceasing operations at its South Australian factory. Before joining Cold Chisel, Barnes worked at the Holden manufacturing plant in Elizabeth.
Holden’s parent company, General Motors, is justifying the death of its local car brand by claiming it’s no longer economical to build right-hand drive vehicles given that 75% of the world drives on the other side of the road. If such logic is to be believed, Ford, Chrysler, Mercedes, Porsche and Ferrari would all swiftly announce that they too are giving up on markets that drive on “the wrong side of the road”.
But the ‘25% excuse’ from General Motors is nothing more than corporate spin designed to take the focus away from the real reason the Holden brand has been axed.
The Holden Commodore was Australia’s best-selling car. Whilst there were many economic reasons for stopping local manufacturing, it seemed that Holden’s sales and marketing team failed to grasp the enormity of just what it meant when the last Holden Commodore rolled off the production line at Elizabeth. The sad truth is that Holden couldn’t envisage a future without its locally produced Commodore and subsequently scrambled to provide a range that Australians wanted.
Ford could easily cobble together a story for why it might stop having a presence in Australia. After all, it too built cars locally for over 60 years and created the legendary Falcon brand.
Unlike Holden, though, when the last Falcon was produced in Geelong, Victoria in 2016, Ford chose to retire the Falcon brand. It accepted that Australians would miss the raw grunt of a V8 Falcon so replaced it with its iconic Mustang five-litre V8 – in a right-hand drive configuration. It put money behind marketing the Mustang and did the same with its highly successful Ranger truck line-up.
The curiosity with GM’s sudden announcement will no doubt continue in the months ahead. Australian taxpayers contributed billions of dollars to Holden’s operations over 70 odd years. It’s understandable that emotions will be running high as Australians react to the news. The announcement of 800 job losses at Holden’s head office will also attract unwanted attention for General Motors.
But, similar to brands like Pan Am and Ansett, the Holden brand will live on long after the last employee turns out the lights at the company’s headquarters in Port Melbourne.
There are still hundreds of thousands of Holdens on the road, and many more stored in garages, being kept in mint condition. Holden will always hold a special place in the hearts of Australians.
Whilst it couldn’t capitalise on the rise of SUVs, or the shift to lower emission vehicles, it gave this country a brand we could all get behind. It gave us ‘Peter Perfect’, ‘The Mountain’, an intense, tribal rivalry with the ‘Blue Oval’, and a backlog of legendary products that most companies would die for.
Rest in peace, Holden. It’s highly unlikely any other Australian brand will ever be able to emulate your success .
This article was first published in Mumbrella in February 2020
