Will the Holden brand survive?

[PooDog]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Correct. But its also slower. The numbers don’t lie.

And there’s also the fact one of them is now extinct.

It's only slower because of the weight disadvantage , taking the auto and weight out of the equation the Miami would kill it .....that was my point

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by muzman

It's only slower because of the weight disadvantage , taking the auto and weight out of the equation the Miami would kill it .....that was my point

The weight difference is less than people think. Less than 100 kg.

[Fordman1]

Originally Posted by muzman

It's only slower because of the weight disadvantage , taking the auto and weight out of the equation the Miami would kill it .....that was my point

But it IS slower.

[PooDog]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

The weight difference is less than people think. Less than 100 kg.

According to Ford USA site mustang 3705lb ....1680kg fgx xr8 is 1860kg according to Ford Australia that's 180kg like carrying two big passengers in the xr8???

Chuck them in the mustang and see who has the edge

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by muzman

According to Ford USA site mustang 3705lb ....1680kg fgx xr8 is 1860kg according to Ford Australia that's 180kg like carrying two big passengers in the xr8???

Chuck them in the mustang and see who has the edge

Figures for the aussie mustangs is over 1773kg. Less than 90 kg difference.

Our cars are higher equipped than us base versions.

[PooDog]

Originally Posted by Bossxr8

Figures for the aussie mustangs is over 1773kg. Less than 90 kg difference.

Our cars are higher equipped than us base versions.

Geez frilly bits are heavy

[Syndrome]

Back to the original topic, it appears Holden, as predicted, is becoming just a bit player.

[danzvtil]

Was in a Holden dealer this arvo for yet more warranty work on my Cruze, had a chat to the manager. The place was crickets and tumbleweeds.

[jpd80]

with the rumblings out of Dearborn regarding unprofitable areas outside of North America,
FoA would have to be under the microscope......

[Fordman1]

Originally Posted by jpd80

with the rumblings out of Dearborn regarding unprofitable areas outside of North America,
FoA would have to be under the microscope......

FoA are very profitable right now.

[Burnout]

The holden dealer here took over the old Denmac site as a used car yard some years ago........ It quietly closed up last week.
They are hitting the radio pretty hard up here too......

However they also flog Hyundi n' Tojo & Subies.

[Bossxr8]

Originally Posted by jpd80

with the rumblings out of Dearborn regarding unprofitable areas outside of North America,
FoA would have to be under the microscope......

With all the high profit margin stuff they sell like Wildtrak and XLT rangers, Everest Trend and Titanium and Mustang, I highly doubt that

[Sioso]

https://www.carsales.com.au/editoria...gether-112429/


Mark Bernhard is the man at the centre of Holden’s battle for Aussie hearts and minds… And he looks haggard

It’s late on a Friday afternoon at ‘Holden House’ in Fishermans Bend and Mark Bernhard is clearly in the fight of his life.

As we sit down to chat, in a quiet corner of the ground-floor cafeteria, he looks more like a World War I battlefield commander than the head of Australia’s own car company.

That’s hardly surprising, since Holden has never looked so bad, or been doing so badly, through the many ups and downs over the past 60 years.

“Crisis? I’m not sure it’s a crisis. That’s your word,” Berhard begins.

“But we need to sell more cars, absolutely.”

How bad is it? Berhard is not going into detail.

“We’re tracking behind where we want to be. I don’t want to tell you how far.”

Bernhard is battling against dismal showroom sales, poor acceptance of the company’s latest products, dealer dissatisfaction, and a pathetic plan to roll through the end of local manufacturing that is clearly not working.

Holden deliberately turned its back on its traditional rusted-on fans while hoping to lure the ‘new Australians’ who are younger, more affluent, and more likely to choose a Volkswagen for their next car. It didn’t work.

“The reality is that we’ve got to appeal to a broad market. We’ve got to do that in a way we appeal to the heartland, but if we only appeal to the heartland you can see what happened to our market share over the past 15 years.

“We have to appeal to today’s Australians,” Berhard says.

As the ZB Commodore and Equinox SUV fail to fire, the Spark is axed as a failure, and Holden resorts to massive price cuts to get the Astra moving, there are people who believe it could be Game Over for the red lion.

General Motors has already tried to sell the company once, as part of the fire sale of Opel and Vauxhall to the PSA Group, despite denials from Holden about any intention to merge it into the French conglomerate.

Now, with many ordinary Australians interpreting last year’s end of Commodore production as ‘Holden is closing’, Bernhard is desperate to turn things around.

“On digital, all the metrics are strong. But we haven’t been able to get them [buyers] to showrooms,” he admits.

“We never had an expectation that the new Commodore would sell in the same numbers as the old Commodore. Equinox is a new nameplate, so it’s taking a while to establish that car.”
Equinox is taking time to establish in a busy SUV market

But it hasn’t taken long to establish the need for change in Holden management, with marketing director Mark Harland gone and former Fishermans Bend staffers Kristian Aquilina and Peter Keiey returning to senior roles.

Aquilina, who did a great job on maintaining support in New Zealand through the manufacturing shutdown, is the new marketing director. Since Harland was openly touted as Berhard’s successor at Holden, Aquilina also emerges as the potential heir.

Keley is making a comeback in the same role he held in the past, sales director, in a move that is already popular with dealers.

But the new team has inherited a massive undertaking.

Holden’s market share is at historical lows below 5 per cent, when Bernhard bet last year that it would not fall below eight.

“Our expectation was not that it would drop below five. I think it’s really on the slower take-up than we had anticipated around Equinox, and to a lesser extent than we expected with Commodore.”

The company is now believed to have more than 12,000 unsold cars sitting at dealerships and in storage, with more boats arriving with pre-ordered cars.

“Your number doesn’t surprise me. I have cars that are on boats everywhere,” he says.

But how can it be fixed?

“Given the passage of time, you work your way through the inventory problem. Does it worry me today? Yes. In one month, less, and in two months, less again.”

He points to the massive advertising blitz around discounted prices and says Holden is launching a big push into July.

“If you have too many cars, you want them just before the end of the financial year.

“I believe we will be back on the track in the second half of the year. Are we going to be able to recover what we lost? Probably not.”

And that’s a big part of the problem.

Frankly, the cars are not good enough and Holden has put its focus in the wrong spots. The Colorado, which is good enough to sell far better, is even being beaten by the Isuzu D-Max despite the tiny dealer network selling the latter.

But Bernhard says he does not see Holden following the Ford model, where it went from the Falcon car company to the Ranger car company to cash-in on the booming demand for utes.

“We’ve got a portfolio to sell. I’m not about to drop all my vehicles except Colorado and Trailblazer, just so I can compete with Isuzu.”

As Berhard gets ready to leave, looking forward to some AFL barracking for the Richmond Tigers whose performance is almost opposite to Holden, he tries for one last positive.

“We have plans in place as we get into 2019 and 2020, and we’re really confident.

“We’ve had some wins. But not enough wins,” he says.

[hackney]

Originally Posted by Sioso

https://www.carsales.com.au/editoria...gether-112429/


Mark Bernhard is the man at the centre of Holden’s battle for Aussie hearts and minds… And he looks haggard

It’s late on a Friday afternoon at ‘Holden House’ in Fishermans Bend and Mark Bernhard is clearly in the fight of his life.

As we sit down to chat, in a quiet corner of the ground-floor cafeteria, he looks more like a World War I battlefield commander than the head of Australia’s own car company.

That’s hardly surprising, since Holden has never looked so bad, or been doing so badly, through the many ups and downs over the past 60 years.

“Crisis? I’m not sure it’s a crisis. That’s your word,” Berhard begins.

“But we need to sell more cars, absolutely.”

How bad is it? Berhard is not going into detail.

“We’re tracking behind where we want to be. I don’t want to tell you how far.”

Bernhard is battling against dismal showroom sales, poor acceptance of the company’s latest products, dealer dissatisfaction, and a pathetic plan to roll through the end of local manufacturing that is clearly not working.

Holden deliberately turned its back on its traditional rusted-on fans while hoping to lure the ‘new Australians’ who are younger, more affluent, and more likely to choose a Volkswagen for their next car. It didn’t work.

“The reality is that we’ve got to appeal to a broad market. We’ve got to do that in a way we appeal to the heartland, but if we only appeal to the heartland you can see what happened to our market share over the past 15 years.

“We have to appeal to today’s Australians,” Berhard says.

As the ZB Commodore and Equinox SUV fail to fire, the Spark is axed as a failure, and Holden resorts to massive price cuts to get the Astra moving, there are people who believe it could be Game Over for the red lion.

General Motors has already tried to sell the company once, as part of the fire sale of Opel and Vauxhall to the PSA Group, despite denials from Holden about any intention to merge it into the French conglomerate.

Now, with many ordinary Australians interpreting last year’s end of Commodore production as ‘Holden is closing’, Bernhard is desperate to turn things around.

“On digital, all the metrics are strong. But we haven’t been able to get them [buyers] to showrooms,” he admits.

“We never had an expectation that the new Commodore would sell in the same numbers as the old Commodore. Equinox is a new nameplate, so it’s taking a while to establish that car.”
Equinox is taking time to establish in a busy SUV market

But it hasn’t taken long to establish the need for change in Holden management, with marketing director Mark Harland gone and former Fishermans Bend staffers Kristian Aquilina and Peter Keiey returning to senior roles.

Aquilina, who did a great job on maintaining support in New Zealand through the manufacturing shutdown, is the new marketing director. Since Harland was openly touted as Berhard’s successor at Holden, Aquilina also emerges as the potential heir.

Keley is making a comeback in the same role he held in the past, sales director, in a move that is already popular with dealers.

But the new team has inherited a massive undertaking.

Holden’s market share is at historical lows below 5 per cent, when Bernhard bet last year that it would not fall below eight.

“Our expectation was not that it would drop below five. I think it’s really on the slower take-up than we had anticipated around Equinox, and to a lesser extent than we expected with Commodore.”

The company is now believed to have more than 12,000 unsold cars sitting at dealerships and in storage, with more boats arriving with pre-ordered cars.

“Your number doesn’t surprise me. I have cars that are on boats everywhere,” he says.

But how can it be fixed?

“Given the passage of time, you work your way through the inventory problem. Does it worry me today? Yes. In one month, less, and in two months, less again.”

He points to the massive advertising blitz around discounted prices and says Holden is launching a big push into July.

“If you have too many cars, you want them just before the end of the financial year.

“I believe we will be back on the track in the second half of the year. Are we going to be able to recover what we lost? Probably not.”

And that’s a big part of the problem.

Frankly, the cars are not good enough and Holden has put its focus in the wrong spots. The Colorado, which is good enough to sell far better, is even being beaten by the Isuzu D-Max despite the tiny dealer network selling the latter.

But Bernhard says he does not see Holden following the Ford model, where it went from the Falcon car company to the Ranger car company to cash-in on the booming demand for utes.

“We’ve got a portfolio to sell. I’m not about to drop all my vehicles except Colorado and Trailblazer, just so I can compete with Isuzu.”

As Berhard gets ready to leave, looking forward to some AFL barracking for the Richmond Tigers whose performance is almost opposite to Holden, he tries for one last positive.

“We have plans in place as we get into 2019 and 2020, and we’re really confident.

“We’ve had some wins. But not enough wins,” he says.

The good old “official” spin from Bernard.Read this yesterday,quite interesting though.No doubt he is playing down the seriousness of the issue.They are in a whole lot of trouble no doubt about it.Cheers

[jpd80]

What else could he say, to reveal any more than the press already knows
would be almost instant death to some dealers - and that's what this will
become, commercial survival of Holden and also its dealer network.

If the story rumors are to be believed, then over 12,000 unsold vehicles at
dealers and holding years with more shipments on the way is a mountain
of trouble - dealers would now be overwhelmed with stock and with some
anecdotal evidence from dealers of almost no foot traffic...my god....

They can't keep turning over Holden's dealer fleet vehicles, making dealers
register new vehicles and selling them as zero km demonstrators.

Commodore was the "rain maker' product that brought everyone else to the
dealers, now that's gone, other models are just dead legging to the almost
inevitable conclusion to this sorry mess.....Cheers.

[Sioso]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Commodore was the "rain maker' product that brought everyone else to the
dealers, now that's gone, other models are just dead legging to the almost
inevitable conclusion to this sorry mess.....Cheers.

Couldn't agree more, I was thinking about this the other day, I couldn't come up with a reason to walk into a Holden yard.
The head has been cut from the snake and they are trying to keep its body alive...........

A circa $60K V8 Camaro in both auto and manual could help but even that probably won't save them.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Sioso

Couldn't agree more, I was thinking about this the other day, I couldn't come up with a reason to walk into a Holden yard.
The head has been cut from the snake and they are trying to keep its body alive...........

A circa $60K V8 Camaro in both auto and manual could help but even that probably won't save them.

Yes but how will Holden match a Factory RHD Mustang without losing their shirts?

HSV converted Camaro is going to be about $20K dearer and there's
no case for GM to do a limited run of RHD Camaro for UK and here.
Ford got the RHD 'Stang through by bundling 25 RHD markets together.

The wheels have come off the Holden business model and frankly,
I don't know how or if GM can put them back on.

[eb2fairmont]

It’s got two main issues

No unique selling proposition - which is what the red commodore provided
They’re a RHD outpost within a company retreating to LHDmarkets

Other contributing factors
Marketing has become a joke - like hipsters really?
Product in many ways is poor and not class leading
Where there is good product there is the overhang from the sale to PSA that supply chain which creates uncertainty in the mind of the buyer
And while astra and commodore are good the residuals are not so why burn the money when you can get a VW?
Or if you were to buy a KIA you get a big warranty and a dealer that doesn’t say they all do that

In short they’re toast once this model cycle is done

[Sioso]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Yes but how will Holden match a Factory RHD Mustang without losing their shirts?

HSV converted Camaro is going to be about $20K dearer and there's
no case for GM to do a limited run of RHD Camaro for UK and here.
Ford got the RHD 'Stang through by bundling 25 RHD markets together.

The wheels have come off the Holden business model and frankly,
I don't know how or if GM can put them back on.

There is no way they could do it, even the $90K HSV Camaro will turn out to be dearer, I expect minimum $110K on the road.

It would take a big Camaro fan to part with that much money for an NA 6.2 coupe (especially when compared to the final VF2 SSV Redline and current Mustang).

[lra]

I can’t understand why people are hinting that the Camaro will be the saviour of Holden.
The V2 Monaro sold 13,000 variants during its cycle, and that was at a price that most drivers who wanted one, could afford. ( No counting exports)
The present market for a large coupe is the Mustang and that has been satisfied, even if a fair proportion are 4 cylinder.
Room for a few Camaros ? Probably, but nowhere near Mustang for the projected Oz price.
As for Cadillac, anyone looked their specs ? FWD 4s and V6s. And where is the CTS in their current lineup ?
Will the GM brand survive ? Yep. Selling FWD SUVs in China, and RWD trucks in the US.
Holden will survive. After its parts inventory has been bought out by Rare Spares.

[LG17]

Maybe they can go back to making saddles.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by lra

The present market for a large coupe is the Mustang and that has been satisfied, even if a fair proportion are 4 cylinder.

Approximately 85% are GTs.
The Ecoboost sales are there but not as much as you'd think....

[DFB FGXR6]

Originally Posted by Sioso

Couldn't agree more, I was thinking about this the other day, I couldn't come up with a reason to walk into a Holden yard.
The head has been cut from the snake and they are trying to keep its body alive...........

A circa $60K V8 Camaro in both auto and manual could help but even that probably won't save them.

Every time a new Commodore launched, I would always go down to the local dealer for a look. The new ZB............. couldn't care less. I have only seen two on the road, and one of those was the dealers demonstrator.


One the Mustang / Camaro -
With the Mustang in Fords range, it has drawn people to the brand that would have previously never considered a Ford. Its role has been to not only appeal to the rusted on Ford fans, but also lure customers new to the brand that may end up buying an Endura or Ranger in the future.
Holden lack this at the moment. No product to keep the faithful within the brand, and nothing particularly interesting or anything with a point of difference.

I know they had committed to certain volumes in the final years of local manufacture, but Holden relied to much on the Commodore in those years, as apposed to Ford who [B]deliberately[B] choked Falcon volume and transitioned to other product.

You could see this whole situation was coming from a mile off to be honest. As soon as the lights went out last October they have been a shot duck.

[Fordman1]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Approximately 85% are GTs.
The Ecoboost sales are there but not as much as you'd think....

Not only that, MY2018 and MY2019 Mustang orders are going really well

[Syndrome]

Originally Posted by jpd80

Approximately 85% are GTs.
The Ecoboost sales are there but not as much as you'd think....

Buying a EcoBoost Mustang would be like having sex with your sister - it may feel OK but it is just plain wrong.

[jpd80]

Originally Posted by Syndrome

Buying a EcoBoost Mustang would be like having sex with your sister - it may feel OK but it is just plain wrong.

My Cousin in Mackay traded in her VW Eos on an EB Mustang, got a great deal,
she loves it because it has plenty of go and not heavy on fuel.
Here's a 15 Ecoboost auto with just a tune, RWHP went from 240 stock to 300
and 1/4 mile went from 14.2 to 12.7 ....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJn75u9C3SQ

Originally Posted by Fordman1

Not only that, MY2018 and MY2019 Mustang orders are going really well

Probably why sales have dropped last month, Must be getting to the end soon.

I've heard that the first of the RHD Bullitts were built last month and the plant
has been doing small batches of RHDs for a while so can't be far off now that
the first of the RHD '19s loading up a boat.

Even now, there's a kind of disbelief with the Holden guys regarding the depth of Mustang sales,
they keep going back to the Monaro and claim that all the Mustang sales must be filled by now.
I tell them that Mustang carries it's own sales oxygen, it gets good refreshes that FoA could never
afford to do to a Falcon and that's why those buyers are still lining up to order the new model.

[Vesper Martini]

Originally Posted by Syndrome

Buying a EcoBoost Mustang would be like having sex with your sister - it may feel OK but it is just plain wrong.

There is a market for customers that never grew up knowing the Mustang or V8's for that matter.. but yes its small.

going off topic here, well sort of because it could, relate to the new commodore.

did you know the Mustang was very nearly consigned to a 4 cylinder FWD
but the fans Protested with Thousands of letters.

Rather than abandon all their work Ford released it as the Probe

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...ost-a-mustang/

[solarite_guy]

They tried it again about 10 years ago.

[MAGPIE]

Opps wrong thread.

[Syndrome]

Originally Posted by solarite_guy

They tried it again about 10 years ago.

Tried what again?