End of Holden...

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I am sorry to see it go. My Caprice has been the best car I have ever owned.
People who own them in the states love them. GTO, Chevy SS, G8, Caprice.
A good portion of us like to badge them properly. Here is mine with a buddies.

[Linked Image]
 
That's too bad - we had a driver in MEL who owned a really nice Holden Caprice - smooth riding and good looking car

I'm still buying GM's but that current CEO makes me wonder
 
They may have the "business case" for this decision but it makes GM look very weak, it looks like they simply turned tail, and went running away from the market like
scared little kids. Terrible image for GM.
 
Originally Posted by 4WD
That's too bad - we had a driver in MEL who owned a really nice Holden Caprice - smooth riding and good looking car

I'm still buying GM's but that current CEO makes me wonder



I'll probably get in trouble for saying it, but honestly are women a good choice for CEOs? They are designed and wired differently and don't do "battle" well.
It's not in them, nature didn't make them warriors for a reason.
45.gif
 
They've been slapping badges on Opels and Daewoos for years now, very little Holden about them at all. Even the Commodore has turned into a parts special. Opel and Vauxhall are no longer part of GM, so it was only a matter of time.
 
Originally Posted by AC1DD
Originally Posted by 4WD
That's too bad - we had a driver in MEL who owned a really nice Holden Caprice - smooth riding and good looking car

I'm still buying GM's but that current CEO makes me wonder



I'll probably get in trouble for saying it, but honestly are women a good choice for CEOs? They are designed and wired differently and don't do "battle" well.
It's not in them, nature didn't make them warriors for a reason.
45.gif



Depends on the woman - Mary Kay and Caroline Hunt are a couple examples to the contrary.

Also, no few men have screwed up as CEOs. Jaques Nasser almost killed Ford, for example. A succession of bad male CEOs at Apple also almost killed the company several times until Steve Jobs was able to return and take the reins up once again.

The problem at GM is a lot less the CEO and a lot more the board and senior leadership as a whole. One result of the Obama-Express-Bankruptcy-N-Bailout sham was that with the exception of Rick Wagoner and a few others, everyone else at GM was allowed to stay, so GM's running into the same problems they did before and the leadership isn't any more able to cope with it than before.

From talking with some Australian friends of mine, it seems like they believe that the problem was that few people wanted to buy anything Holden had to sell, the only things the people who were still buying Holdens wanted to buy were the big RWD vehicles and when those ended production there was nothing anyone actually wanted to buy. This is kind of what happened to GM in the US from the 70s through today, just to a greater degree - people just don't want what GM has to offer like they did in the past (for a multitude of reasons), which is why we have millions and millions of import cars running around, and GM considering killing off all the sedans they make for lack of sales.
 
Originally Posted by Capt
Darn. My 2005 GTO was built like a [censored] brickhouse.


They aren't aging particularly well in the US, sadly. A number of friends of mine bought them and they became more troublesome than expected as they get older. An Aussie friend of mine came to a forum meet in Dallas last year and another attendee's GTO started having considerable cooling system problems. Her comment on seeing the thing in the shop? "Behold the Commodore in its natural habitat."
 
They made a huge mistake in naming the imported replacement for Commodore....Commodore. What a disaster though. Every town in Australia has a Holden dealer, lots of jobs are going to be lost.
 
Originally Posted by AC1DD
I'll probably get in trouble for saying it, but honestly are women a good choice for CEOs? They are designed and wired differently and don't do "battle" well.
It's not in them, nature didn't make them warriors for a reason.
45.gif


I don't think a decision like this reflects an unwillingness to do battle.

I've known a few C-suite people at big companies. Shutting down a brand like Holden at a company like GM might be smart or stupid, wise or shortsighted, expedient or not, good or bad in the long run -- but one thing it never is is cowardly. The brand usually has a lot of stakeholders and fans within the company. Those people won't take the closure lying down. All of them have to be either convinced or overruled, and every effort to do so is a test of resolve.
 
If they had poor sales not much could be done if little interest in their vehicles.

Its unfortunately bad for lots of people out of a job.
 
It just seems to me that GM and Ford have to cut too many corners to compete (pricewise) with the Japanese and Koreans. I'm not sure if it's because of unions or bloated management or what. Another thing I notice is that CEOs of American car companies are worried more about stock price and their 'golden parachutes' than the long term future of the company (I used to think that Mulally saved Ford but I now realize that he made himself a fortune and moved on). Japanese CEOs seem to have more honor and allegiance to their companies (except Ghosn of course).
 
Shame, they made some great cars. Just like they're handing over the sedan market to imports in the United States, they're doing the same in Australia.

Originally Posted by ls1mike
I am sorry to see it go. My Caprice has been the best car I have ever owned.
People who own them in the states love them. GTO, Chevy SS, G8, Caprice.
A good portion of us like to badge them properly. Here is mine with a buddies.

[Linked Image]



That's been a huge thing in the Middle East as well, people go as far as ordering new driver's side airbags with Holden logos on them.
 
Originally Posted by AC1DD



I'll probably get in trouble for saying it, but honestly are women a good choice for CEOs? They are designed and wired differently and don't do "battle" well.
It's not in them, nature didn't make them warriors for a reason.
45.gif



I'd argue GM finally has a CEO that has the balls to cut deadweight brands like Opel and Holden. Just keep losing money to save-face? That sounds smart
smirk2.gif


GMs US market share peaked around 50% in the late 1950s and was down to about 17% in 2015 when she took over. Every single one of her male predecessors in the last 50+ years were complete failures in maintaining market share. Almost totally clueless to the changing marketplace that left GM in the dust by the Asian brands.

Not to mention the endless stream of pure garbage products her male counterparts rubber-stamped from the early 1970s, until well into the early 2000s that led them straight into bankruptcy. Superb management.

Only true business warriors give the green light to such engineering and design marvels as the Chevy Vega, Chevy Citation, Cadillac Cimarron, Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra, Buick Century, Pontiac Aztec, etc, etc, etc. you could go on for days.

The premise that GM (of all companies) was doing just great until a woman came along, is laughable, at best.
 
I see this as more of a sign of GM weakness than a single brand being erased. GM is also getting out of the Thailand market too. GM has some serious business problems.

Now I have to go and put on my Kevlar.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
I see this as more of a sign of GM weakness than a single brand being erased. GM is also getting out of the Thailand market too. GM has some serious business problems.

Now I have to go and put on my Kevlar.


Their business problems started in the 1960s and haven't much stopped since.
 
Originally Posted by E365
Originally Posted by PimTac
I see this as more of a sign of GM weakness than a single brand being erased. GM is also getting out of the Thailand market too. GM has some serious business problems.

Now I have to go and put on my Kevlar.


Their business problems started in the 1960s and haven't much stopped since.




That's true. It didn't make any sense to have multiple brands under one roof when those brands were the same car except for minor differences and the badge on the hood. It really became apparent in the 70's.
 
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