Holden Commodore - dead at 42, following a long illness. Here's why: Save thousands on any new car (Australia-only):
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Yesterday, Holden informed us:
“Holden announces exclusive SUV & ute line-up” - media.gm.com
I’m not kidding. This is how you kill an icon, apparently. Doing it this way makes it look like there’s no fucking plan in place at all, I’d suggest. Perhaps because there’s no fucking plan in place at all.
We’ve got this thin now. So useful. The internet. If you’re GM and you’re going to kill off all the latent Opel Insignia shitboxes under your retarded rubric, why not do it all on the same day, singing from the same script, so you don’t all look like abject dipshits globally? Just a suggestion.
But at least the Holden statement is top-notch. You should take a moment to bask in its brilliance at media.gm.com. I’m talking export-grade bullshit. The creme de la creme of crap de la crap. And, of course, it doesn’t end with a simple ‘exclusive’ line-up announcement. Like a bad late-night infomercial, there’s more:
“Holden takes decisive action to ensure a sharp focus on the largest and most buoyant market segments. Streamlining Holden’s portfolio is consistent with market trends and customer preferences.” - media.gm.com
‘Decisive action’. ‘Sharp focus’. ‘Buoyant segments’. ‘Streamlining’. Christ - was there a ‘buy one, get three free sale on bad bullshit buzzwords? Why was I not told?
Customer preferences… Customers prefer - increasingly - not to buy any friggin’ Holden, you GM media muppets. Remind me not to get anyone from Holden to write my eulogy.
Still, if there were a Michelin three-star restaurant specialising in the preparation of bullshit, Holden’s treatment of this issue would be turd of prime Angus stud, air cured, wrapped in prosciutto, stuffed with pine nuts, and topped with a caramelised blackberry reduction. Yesssssssssss!
Below the fold, they also said this:
“The company has elected to retire the ZB Commodore and the BK Astra in 2020.” - media.gm.com
Which of course is what they were really announcing, once you pare back all the bullshit. Two for the price of one - Commodore and Astra - a great deal for the grim reaper, I think you’d agree.
In its prime, Commodore was the top-selling vehicle here in the kingdom of Greater Shitsville, for 15 incredible years in a row, culminating in 2011. It peaked in 1998, selling 94,500 units.
But Holden doused itself with lighter fluid and started playing with matches shortly after that. And when the factory finally closed in October 2017, the last real Commodore - the home-grown, rear-drive one available with a V8 (bogan stamp of approval) - was replaced with a bad Toyota Camry clone from ze Chermans.
Then - rubbing salt in the wounds - Detroit sold Opel to the Frogs, and the Holden house of cards took one final step towards functional instability.
When the failed Commodore and Astra retire next year, to that great scrapheap in the sky, the Holden lineup will be comprised of the following shitheaps: Trax, Acadia and Equinox.
And the following non-shitheaps: Trailblazer and Colorado.
It’s just not enough. Trax is an embarrassment. 4300 sales this year. Hyundai Kona: 12,400. (That’s for comparison.) Acadia: 2900. Mazda CX-9: 6600. Equinox: 4448. Hyundai Tucson: 16,999.
Conclusion: Holden’s allegedly ‘sharply focussed’ SUV portfolio is in fact spectacularly uncompetitive. And Colorado - which is not a bad bus - still can’t hold a candle to the likes of Hilux, Ranger or Triton.
Incredibly enough, Holden operates the second-largest dealer network in the country, behind Toyota, which out-sells Holden almost five to one.
The Holden business model is unsustainable.
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