Wise man once told me, never buy a Holden with a model name that ends in “a”
Oof Torana
A mate from high school wrote off three Toranas in his first year of driving. One on the day he got his licence. He was still alive ten years later, surprisingly.
Hell no, The Craptiva sucked, but the cruze killed it. One dud could be forgiven. A second dud showed a willful hatred of their customers.
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Holden have made substandard cars since the start. Heck the Kingswood was a controversial car at the time for being woefully basic, shoddy brakes and poor build quality. The Japanese cars at the time were leagues better.
The Commodores since gen 1 was seen as a downgrade. The Camira is now a meme. The first Calais’ suffered from quality control problems. GM thought they could go it alone with designing infotainments in their later models that proved to age poorly.
In the end Australia’s RHD market is too small and not profitable. As Holden had just finished the prototype of the HSV V8 Colorado, they pulled the pin and shut down Holden.
In foresight, you could argue that’s just what the market demanded. If GM at Detroit didn’t say it, COVID would’ve pushed them off the edge anyways. People can now get big American trucks that cost 4 Commodores. Ford Rangers equate to 80% of Ford’s sales.
I hate looking at the Captiva. Just the tailgate is enough to put me off it. They couldn’t even hide the hinges.
They mentioned the Cruze, but forgot that it started life as a Suzuki RM415 Ignis with a facelift.
That original cruze… If afterthought was a car.
Then there’s the Trax, one of the most miserable things I’ve ever driven.
I’d argue that it was the generation of Opel content before this that set the wheels in motion. If you owned a 2000 Astra or Vectra they were well known for being dogshit, and the following generation were no better. That alienated anyone willing to spend a bit of money and you were left with the cheap and cheerful crowd and competition with decent Korean products.
