Small Australian Holden! Strewth! Give him some water mate it might grow!
December 26th 2008 12:50
Holden’s saviour?
Wishful thinking!
The announcement last week that Holden will assemble the Delta series Chevrolet /Daewoo, Opel / Holden Cruze in Australia and this was greeted with general enthusiasm. An aside, AUTOLOUD noticed that Channel 7 ran a story on this and the vehicle image displayed was in fact the Lancia Delta. LMAO!
Look closely at the images and you see a shrunken version of the Opel / Holden Vectra. No prizes for guessing it will look different by 2011. What they have told us is: they may offer alternate powertrains including diesel, E85 and possibly even a hybrid powered version.
The stuff they have not told us include what vehicles do they expect to sell it against, although those magic words “Corolla buster” has been bravely mentioned! They won’t tell us the price (yet!) but they would already have a target retail price point pencilled in and lastly just how many of these do they expect to sell?
Should Holden pitch the car against Tiida, Corolla and other hatchbacks they will be have to be sharp in their pricing for obvious reasons. The other thing that will have happened by 2011 is the arrival of Chinese passenger cars on the Australian market. People are happy enough to buy a badge but if they can buy a brand new shiny Chinese car for the same price as a 60,000kms Corolla, what would you buy!
What really throws AUTOLOUD is just how much has the Australian government contributed? Will the car be assembled for export? Probably not as that makes no sense. From a business case point of view, GM could build the same car in Korea, courtesy of the Daewoo factory, change the badges and import the car. The volume would be larger therefore reducing costs and the selling price would still be cheaper than its main competition.
Maybe GM hope that the “Made in Australia” tag will get the average Aussie car buyer all warm and fuzzy again.
Good luck with that!
Wishful thinking!
The announcement last week that Holden will assemble the Delta series Chevrolet /Daewoo, Opel / Holden Cruze in Australia and this was greeted with general enthusiasm. An aside, AUTOLOUD noticed that Channel 7 ran a story on this and the vehicle image displayed was in fact the Lancia Delta. LMAO!
Look closely at the images and you see a shrunken version of the Opel / Holden Vectra. No prizes for guessing it will look different by 2011. What they have told us is: they may offer alternate powertrains including diesel, E85 and possibly even a hybrid powered version.
The stuff they have not told us include what vehicles do they expect to sell it against, although those magic words “Corolla buster” has been bravely mentioned! They won’t tell us the price (yet!) but they would already have a target retail price point pencilled in and lastly just how many of these do they expect to sell?
Should Holden pitch the car against Tiida, Corolla and other hatchbacks they will be have to be sharp in their pricing for obvious reasons. The other thing that will have happened by 2011 is the arrival of Chinese passenger cars on the Australian market. People are happy enough to buy a badge but if they can buy a brand new shiny Chinese car for the same price as a 60,000kms Corolla, what would you buy!
What really throws AUTOLOUD is just how much has the Australian government contributed? Will the car be assembled for export? Probably not as that makes no sense. From a business case point of view, GM could build the same car in Korea, courtesy of the Daewoo factory, change the badges and import the car. The volume would be larger therefore reducing costs and the selling price would still be cheaper than its main competition.
Maybe GM hope that the “Made in Australia” tag will get the average Aussie car buyer all warm and fuzzy again.
Good luck with that!
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