>Holden, a subsidiary of General Motors (GM), ceased manufacturing operations in October 2017Aussies, what happened here?
.Gm hoped oz government would bail them out so they could take the money back to the states
sadness
Wasn't Holden basically Australia's Opel? I think some Holdens were basically rebadged Opels, too.Opel was owned by GM for a long time, made a couple of highly successful cars in the 90s and contributed to the engineering behind some Buicks, Chevys and Saturns, but eventually declined and went out of favor in Europe due to GM's endless quest for short-term profits and cost cutting.After the 2008 crisis the company was in deep shit, and Merkel almost had them sold to the Russian government-owned Sperbank before the deal was called off.PSA (later Stellantis) then bought what was left of the struggling GM Europe, including Opel.
>>28673613>Relatively high cost of production and union wages. >small domestic market and non existent export market. >Economies of scale. >Heavy competition from Japan. >Geriatrics who wanted an “Australian car” eventually all died out.
>>28673649I suppose I should say a “limited export market” since the kiwis got them too
>>28673613No clue, but I gotta thank them for giving us their best cars.
>>28673639Yes, Astra H was available with all the badges - Opel, Vauxhall, Holden, and Saturn.
>>28673613Their cars were pieces of shit and Australians didn't want to buy them.
>Holden had to send all their money to GM in America>GM had to approve any R&D expenditure but refused most requests to innovate and upgrade production lines>Holden had to purchase parts and wheels from GM America at retail prices instead of buying locally produced parts which were cheaper>GM wanted government subsidies so they cooked the books to make it look like Holden was unprofitable even though they were the highest selling brand in AustraliaHolden wanted to make a SUV based on the Zeta platform when they saw the way the car market was heading but GM wouldn't let themGM also refused to let Holden develop electric vehicles.
>>28673613Honestly holdens were shit because they were essentially just amerislop. They're awful to drive, trashily styled and generally just low quality.
>>28673613GM kept bleeding all the profits out of the Australian division and making decisions that lead to bankruptcy in the hopes Aus government would bail them out so they could take all the money back to the US
What is with americans running foreign subsidiaries into the ground?
Did Holden ever produce anything iconic or collectable?
>>28675551Torana was iconicSo was the VL turbo
The biggest thing to note about this, is that GM & Ford held multiple meetings about increasing efficiency to try and save their AUS parts of the brand long before they went under. Australian production lines were less efficient than Mexican/Brazilian ones and their unions kept driving the prices up while the AUS dollar was at it's peak strength>economy not good for exporting bc strong dollar>domestic market limited by sparse population>most remote continent with highest import/export costs for it's parent company in NA and EU>>>Aussies were less efficient that third worlders at assembling cars
>>28676633they weren't less efficient, they just cost more and had better hours and working conditions.
>>28675269#NMPFords approach of buying up European brands and using their newly acquired styling queues on American sedans is a personal favorite of mine