Former CAR editor, Cedric Wright, reports from Australia:
The coming upheaval in the Australian motor industry has mushroomed with the official announcement that the Holden Commodore (aka Chev Lumina) will be killed off at the end of 2016—at the same time that the Ford Falcon is due to go out of production. This means that both of the Aussie motoring icons—which had dominated the local scene for more than five decades—are doomed.
Ford Australia—which last year produced fewer cars than it did in 1960—acknowledged some time ago that it could not guarantee the future of the Falcon, and its manufacturing facility in Victoria, beyond the end of 2016. In the new world of Ford International, the Falcon and Territory had, in effect, become “orphans”. Tellingly, Ford has not yet applied for federal or state funding for a manufacturing program beyond 2016, and has not engaged local suppliers for a quote on next-generation components—which should have happened by now.
Holden joined this march to the scrapheap in December, when the company admitted that the employment of its 360 workers at its V6 engine plant were at risk after the end of 2016, and followed this up with an announcement that the current Model VF Commodore “would run through to the end of 2016”. In an interview with Australian motoring writers at the Detroit Motor Show, Holden boss Mike Devereux qualified this with the statement: “We have a current plan to put another vehicle type into the plant before 2017.” It is believed that this refers to a medium four-cylinder, front-wheel-drive model, not identified at this stage, which would join the next-generation Holden Cruze on the production lines.
South Africans who grew up in the years before and after World War II will have fond memories of the schoolboy “Ford vs Chev” rivalry—in Australia, it was “Ford vs Holden”, and these two once dominated the sales charts to such a degree that they were thought to be untouchable. In both countries, time has marched on! Today, cars from 67 brands—with a total of more than 360 models—are in Australian showrooms…
