Printable View
I was employed at Holden for 19 years and involved in Research and Development [bighmmm]
All i can say is they sure did thing`s the American way from about 2008 on .
Im happy to have had a job for so long in one place . It was a good experience and eye opener at the same time.
Have not owned a holden for mmmmm 25 + years and probably never will .
looks at holden in driveway. yep, must be my fault, lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilipA
There are a lot of factors in this but at the end of the day, build a car that the people want, at a reasonable price, that’s reliable - job done...
What’s the old saying “build a better mouse trap and people will beat your door down”? Or summin like that...
Nope, not me either - always had Holden’s and other Aussie cars and still have but stopped buying Holden’s around 15 years ago as they were getting worse and worse.Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilipA
I bet my story could be repeated by 10’s if thousands around the country that stopped buying them because they became crap.
If you can’t build a car people want then suffer the consequences. They are entirely to blame for their own downfall IMO.
There are several fundamental problems, which are, in fact, beyond Holden's control.
1. Looked at long term, few, if any, car manufacturer, have ever been successful long term without either protection or subsidy. (Look at the long lists of manufacturers that have disappeared!)
2. Modern car manufacture, with very tight and specific legislative rules for design, mandates any model being built in large numbers because of the cost of development.
3. This means that any manufacturer must have a large market. Because of competition and protection in outside markets, this means they need to have a large domestic market.
4. Australia does not have a large domestic market - and it has fragmented over the last few decades, meaning that the market is tiny by modern standards for any single model.
5. The Australian car industry was protected since the first ban on importing complete cars in 1914, with Empire Preference between the wars and was heavily and increasingly protected from 1945 until about the 1970s, with protection gradually being wound back after that.
6. Even before protection was significantly wound back, Australians were increasingly paying the extra import duty on cars that were more modern and better equipped than the warmed over 1940s designs being offered by Holden, a trend that accelerated as Japanese imports started arriving in the 1960s, that like the UK and Continental imports not only came with heaters and radios, but actually could be sold for no more than the local cars. The heavy protection ensured that a lot of these were at least partly assembled here.
7. Improved communications made Australians aware how much more they were paying for cars than the same model overseas, and the popularity of protection consequently decreased.
When I got my license I was neither a Holden, nor A Ford Man, but I did like V8s,..still do, so my first car was a Ford, actually a '48 Ford Mercury V8, had a couple of them, also a '51 Twin Spinner,...but basically on a meagre bank teller's wage, I couldn't afford to run them, so I bought my first Holden a '59 FC Special, then a succession of other makes & models which I won't bore you with.
In the 60s got involved with motorsport, Brock, the Holden Dealer Team etc, and then bought my first "Real" Holden, an A9X around 1984, then a VK Group A in 1986,...at which time I did also look at an XD 5.8 Falcon ESP, but it handled like a barge so I left it alone, but it showed that I wasn't a dedicated "Holden" person,...any V8 was a consideration.
Since then, I've had a succession of V8s, mostly Holdens, and I've just bought the last of the last, an HSV GTSR, not everyone's cup of tea, but it suits me.
So I do have an affinity with Holden, & I'm sad they're not manufacturing in Aussie any more. There are many reasons for that, but this is not the place to discuss many of them.
Holden has never been a truly "Aussie" company, they have always had to answer to Detroit, but for a long time, only to some extent. I believe that Holden always tried to produce a good vehicle, and they did, as evidenced by the number of early model Holdens, Kingswoods, Utes etc etc, and of course the Commodore, which will be sadly missed by many.
I don't believe that "Holden" treated the Aussie buyer with contempt, no it was not Holden, BUT "someone" did, and that someone was GM Detroit.
The last Chairman & M.D. of Holden that really did have a real go at striving to let Holden do its own thing, was Peter Hanenberger who did the job from 1999-2003. He was successful in getting the CV8 Monaro into production, and He also succeeded in getting exports going to Asia, but, and this is the crux of the matter, not to the U.S.A, or to any other markets. GM Detroit would not support the Monaro, would not support the Commodore (Chev SS), nor would they support the Caprice/Statesman police car project,......and without exports Holden was doomed.
And after Hanenberger, all of his successors and Holden itself, became increasingly under the control of Detroit.
I think Holden was a phenomenal Aussie "institution" in its day, and I do not believe it treated the Aussie market with contempt,....GM Detroit certainly did.
Just my two bobs worth. Pickles.
I think this is what you were really trying to say.Quote:
Originally Posted by grey_ghost
I used to love Holden's and always wanted one. Mum and Dad bought a VN wagon when I was 1 and we went around a large chunk of Oz in it in 2000. I also enjoyed the German imports, particularly the Astra Turbo.
Then Holden started rebadging daewoos. Having owned a Daewoo (through no fault of my own. Well... I married a girl that owned one) I never wished to own another.
In a time when Daewoo had just gone bust, and the cheap companies such as Hyundai and Kia were trying to push themselves upmarket, why the hell did Holden start trying to be a cheap company? They've lost too much market and now the German imports have little hope of bringing them back. Ford stuck to importing German cars and trying to sell better cars and their local arms seem to be doing alright...
Anyway, my 2c in a sea of copper coins.
I owned 9 Holden's( they were all great cars [smilebigeye]) then I bought a VB Commodore :thumbsdown: ( not that you could call it a Holden) have not bought a GMH product since . :banana: My son in law has had Commodores I refuse to work on them , I changed the starter motor on one of them once , I would rather do 10 Falcon starter motors . Not sure how the new Commodores will go being made by Citroen Group . I owned a Citroen C4 once it was on a par with the VB. [bigsad]
Very eloquently spoken, and absolutely spot on.Quote:
Originally Posted by JDNSW
Pickles.