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I can see the rationale in a way. The Holden brand was built on cars, esp. family sedans and wagons, actually being made in Australia for Australian conditions. What is the value of that brand if non of its models are to be built here - why bother just putting a Holden badge on an imported model, especially when the source brand may have more cachet in specific model ranges?
Sales are terrible for Holdens, they are still trying to flog Commodores that are 18 months old in design and calling them new cars, the brand is damaged and has been since they took money off the government when they promised to keep manufacturing in Aus but in fact closed down their operation and sent that money to Detroit....Ford will be next, a equally woeful company whose customer service and engineering is amongst the worst.....
Yes, the great Aussie public has generally moved on from the traditional Holden and Ford family vehicles leaving mainly the die-hards whose patronage does not provide enough demand to support local production. The Ford brand though, unlike Holden, is a global one, so will survive albeit on imported vehicles.
Most moved on because both brands tried to sell cars for top dollar with B-Grade builds and materials. Ford and Holden were making local plastic versions of BMW and Taurus and trying to charge more for them even though they were full of 70s technology!The car makers would claim nobody wanted large cars, but at the moment the trend is away from small cars back to family sized vehicles which is ironic given they closed the plants making medium and large sized sedans. The truth was they didn't want to spend on old factories to update old models with modern powertrains and technologies.It's going to be interesting to see what happens in the market over the next few years, a friend I have who use to own a Ford dealership tells me the biggest growth area is in light trucks like Twin cabs. Our market is becoming very American, and you can expect to find interesting hybrid or plugin versions appearing in SUVs and traditional muscle cars over the next few years. I was sceptical until he took me for a spin in his Tesla 100D, it cost a lot to buy, stuff all to run as he has a setup at home with solar panels and Tesla batteries that basically charges it off the sun, and pins you to the seat under acceleration like a top end sports car.
The truth is much simpler, the local manufacturers could not compete.Labour costs at the low production factories could not compete with the Asian manufacturers for low cost vehicles, and they couldn't compete on quality with European manufacturers for high cost vehicles.Our cost of living combined with union forces squeezed them out.
Its all swings and roundabouts.Give it time, things will come back here.
No chance in the next 25 years, and probably 50
Thats what the Germans and the Japanese do anyway.
In hindsight a lot of that has been smoke and mirrors.Both countries have major manufacturers that have been caught out demanding and also claiming tight tolerances and performance levels that they cannot actually meet! They made sure the build quality was high, in other words they put on a nice clean set of clothes, and nobody bothered to ask questions about the other performance or technology claims.