Vauxhall News

Episode 237 - The Holden Commodore that could have been!

These are the future ‘Holdens’ that we are now unlikely to ever see in Australia, breaking cover in Europe wearing ex-General Motors (GM) nameplates, and yet thriving today under visionary management.

British car manufacturing took an unprecedented hit in April as a result of several companies shutting down its UK production lines, in an attempt to soften the blow of the UK’s impending split with the European Union (EU).

GM's go-fast VXR badge will live on post PSA Group's takeover of Opel and Vauxhall, with the performance tag to be used for the French group's future hybrids and EVs.

Global new-vehicle sales are on track to reach the 100-million mark in the next couple of years, with the Chinese market responsible for more than a quarter of that number.

“We welcome all that has been done by its talented teams and the beautiful Opel and Vauxhall brands and the exceptional heritage of the company. We intend to manage PSA and Opel/Vauxhall capitalising

PSA and GM have collaborated on projects in the past, as seen most recently with the Peugeot 2008-based Opel Crossland X.

The HSV Maloo, sold in the UK as the Vauxhall VXR pick-up, now holds the record for the fastest light commercial vehicle on a Worcestershire hill climb track called Shelsley Walsh (try saying that after a few beers). Somewhat appropriately, it was ex-pat Australian Steve Cropley, who is Autocar magazine’s editor-in-chief, who drove the brutish ute. “The plan was not just to set an LCV record time at Shelsley, but make it respectable enough to stick for a while,” Cropley says. “Despite the track being dampish, and littered with wildlife that thought the hillclimb season had ended, we managed a 38.65 second run. The Maloo’s huge torque, decent launch control and easy handling made the whole experience less of a chore than it should have been, too.”  

It's being hatched in Europe to a busy baby-car market but it's too early to tell if Opel's new car will develop enough to make it here.The Opel Adam - a twist on the company originator's name, Adam Opel - is the first new nameplate from Opel since the Insignia of 2008. Opel Australia says the Adam - a three-door car the length of aHyundai Getz - isn't confirmed for sale in Australia. But the company says "it's something we will watch''."The complexity and number of options on this little car makes it a tough sell for Australia, with long delivery times and so on,'' says Opel Australia marketing boss Michelle Lang. "It is a great product though and if there is any way we can see an appetite for it here, I'll be pushing for it.'' The car was this week unveiled in the UK and shows that Opel sister company Vauxhall has adopted a fun attitude to marketing Adam.It hits the UK in three trim levels - Jam (for fashionable and colourful), Glam (elegant and sophisticated) and Slam (sporty). The fashion-led philosophy allows customisation of up to one-million different combinations. Vauxhall claims this gives the Adam the ability to be personalised in more ways than any other mass-produced car.It has 12 body colours including Purple Fiction and James Blonde, with three contrasting roof colours - I'll be Black, White my Fire and Men in Brown. Then there are three option packs - Two-tone Black or White Pack; flamboyant Twisted Pack; and bold Extreme Pack - and three external decal packages called Splat, Fly and Stripes.Even the ceiling headliners come in three versions - Sky (clouds), Fly (autumn leaves) and Go (chequered flag) - and there are 18 interchangeable decor panels on the dashboard and doors, two of which are backlit by LEDs which Vauxhall claims is an industry first. It has Opel's new IntelliLink infotainment system that connects a smartphone to the car and is the first system compatible with both Android and Apple iOS. It is the first Vauxhall to include new-generation Advanced Park-Assist that identifies appropriate parking spaces and steers the car into place. The UK will get the choice initially of three four-cylinder petrol engine specs - 52kW/115Nm 1.2-litre, 65kW/130Nm 1.4-litre and a higher-performance 75kW/130Nm 1.4 - but a three-cylinder, direct-injection turbo-petrol of about 1-litre will follow. There are no diesels and no automatic transmissions in Adam's satchel.The car would match up against the Volkswagen Up - and its Skoda Citigo clone - and Hyundai i20, Mitsubishi Mirage and Nissan Micra, so needing a sub $14,000 price tag. 

Factory closures are becoming increasingly probable after European car registrations fell to their lowest level in 22 years last month. The European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA) notes the sales slowdown is accelerating and now predicts a slump of up to 10 per cent for the year.In all, just 688,168 new vehicles were registered in August, the lowest total for the month since the EU data was first compiled in 1990. With some factories already running at 50 per cent of capacity, there is talk of Fiat, Ford and Opel closing the doors on some of their most unprofitable production lines.“Something needs to give,” Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne said last week, adding that Fiat will outline a blueprint for the “European challenge” when it releases third quarter results later this year. Ford was the biggest loser in August with sales down by almost a third on the previous year, a fact it attributes to a decision not to match rivals discounts during what is traditionally the slowest car sales month on the EU calendar. “There was a lot of short-cycle business and heavy incentives that we decided largely to refrain from, Ford of Europe's marketing chief Roelant de Waard says. The Volkswagen Group's massive product portfolio made it one of the few carmakers to increase sales, led by Audi increasing its share of the luxury car segment. In contrast, Opel/Vauxhall saw a 19 per cent fall in registrations, Fiat was down 18 per cent and both Renault and Peugeot/Citroen were hit with 13 per cent drops. Registrations by country largely reflect those hurting worst from the sovereign debt crisis. Greece and Portugal lead the way with falls of 40 per cent year-to-date, Italy is down by almost 20 per cent and Spanish registrations fell by 8.5 per cent. Ominously for France, registrations this year are down 13.4 per cent, while Germany, which accounts for one in three of all cars sold in Europe, has seen its market contract by 0.6 per cent. The French Government has fiercely resisted factory closures on its turf and criticised Peugeot last month when it announced it would shed up to 10,000 jobs and close a factory in the north of the country. That's not an option for Renault, with the government holding a controlling stake in the French carmaker.