Holden Boss Spills The Beans On New Commodore

Derek Kreindler
by Derek Kreindler

Good news, Aussie car fans. The Commodore lives. But the evidence keeps piling up that the next one will be a front-drive car bearing little to no resemblance to the current RWD muscle car.

The Australian, reporting on the VF Commodore launch event, says that we’ve got about three more years to enjoy the current rear-drive car.

After the speech, Devereux told the frazzled media scrum: “This [Commodore] will run through to the end of 2016. After that time we are going to be putting two global architectures into the [Adelaide] plant, one of them will underpin the next Commodore.”

To make sure he wasn’t misunderstood, Devereux repeated: “There is another Commodore coming after this one. We’re going to build it in Adelaide on a [global] architecture.”

The Australian reports that the next Commodore will be a Toyota Camry sized vehicle that will be sold as a Buick in other markets. That jibes with previous reports of a global, front-drive architecture coming to replace the rear-drive one. At best, we may see some kind of Alpha platform vehicle utilized in the future, but the front-drive Commodore is going to happen. Australia’s automotive tastes have turned upside down over the past five years, and the Commodore’s popularity with the buying public isn’t nearly what it used to be.

Derek Kreindler
Derek Kreindler

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  • Ranwhenparked Ranwhenparked on Feb 11, 2013

    I guess a lot of this depends on how popular the Chevrolet SS and Caprice prove in the US. If GM wants to keep on selling, say, the Camaro, they're going to need to keep a low cost RWD platform in the mix somewhere, and if the Caprice is a hit with law enforcement and the SS does well with consumers, there could wind up being enough American demand alone to justify keeping the RWD sedans around. How well has the Buick Park Avenue been doing in China? That's another factor to consider. The next Commodore could even be done with CKDs imported from China, that would bring the cost down.

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    • APaGttH APaGttH on Feb 11, 2013

      Camaro is already slated to go to the Alpha platform. Zeta is too big for the Camaro anyone (common complaint). The engineers cut it down to about 7/8 the size of a Commodore/G8 but some of the limitations of the chassis is why the Camaro is the way the Camaro is. For example, even though the Camaro is Canadian built go check where the battery is in the trunk. Yup, driver side - right where it is in Australia on their Zeta products. Too much work for a broke GM to relocate everything to put it on the proper side to counter balance the weight of the driver (as in Australia). If you open the engine bay of a Pontiac G8 GT and a Camaro side by side you see a TON of common pieces, plumbing, and parts. But for the Camaro - it's going Alpha

  • RobertRyan RobertRyan on Feb 12, 2013

    @grinchsmate said: "Rob Just Dutch disease mate. Dutch elm disease is a fungal infection which as the name suggests affects elm trees, not economies. Also settle down a bit this isn’t a youtube comments section." I heard it referred too as "Economic Dutch Elm Disease " in Australia as the high dollar strangles the rest of the economy like the fungal infection.OK "Dutch Disease" refers to the country so i will refer to it as that. I get on with the bulk of the people here who contribute a lot to the threads on this Blog. This one poster has annoyed not only me but Big Al from OZ who is pretty placid on the PUTC forums and Bertil from here.

  • RobertRyan RobertRyan on Feb 12, 2013

    @Robert. Gordon said "UK certainly has more brands available than the US – no question about it. I meant it as a counterpoint to the unsubstantiated statistic that Australia purportedly has the most brands." I find that statistic pretty amazing in itself in a good way. The UK has 55-60 million but can support 80 brands. The US has slightly over 300 million and only 64? Thanks for the diligent research.

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    • Robert Gordon Robert Gordon on Feb 12, 2013

      @RobertRyan I don't follow that logic. 1. Carroll Shelby International, Coda, Global Electric Motorcars , SSC Saleen, Zimmer are all manufacturers of sandalone models, not simply tuned stock vehicles from another manufacturer. 2. If we're going to remove the likes of Calloway and SRT then we have to do the same to HSV, and FPV (actually FPV are defunct, so I should delete them anyway) Abarth and HDT. 3. AMG is more a provider of accessories than it is a tuner. Smart is most definately a standalone brand. It is to MB as MINI is to BMW. I do agree that for the size of market Australia has a very large choice - but that is kind of irrelevant anyway. what matters to a consumer is how many choices they as an individual are presented with.

  • RobertRyan RobertRyan on Feb 13, 2013

    @Robert.Gordon said: ". Carroll Shelby International, Coda, Global Electric Motorcars , SSC Saleen, Zimmer are all manufacturers of sandalone models, not simply tuned stock vehicles from another manufacturer." Yes You have makers of boutique cars, Electric Golf Carts, CODA an EV, SSC and Zimmer. Still they are far from mainstream. In that case you can add 35 Boutique makers to the Australian list plus two or three EV's as well. "If we’re going to remove the likes of Calloway and SRT then we have to do the same to HSV, and FPV (actually FPV are defunct, so I should delete them anyway) Abarth and HDT." Yes ,by the way FPV is not defunct but alive and well. http://fpv.com.au/ I could have added at least 10 more similar to FPV and HSV. they are the "tuners" "I do agree that for the size of market Australia has a very large choice – but that is kind of irrelevant anyway. what matters to a consumer is how many choices they as an individual are presented with" Well the market is actually booming. The Australian car market is on another record for 2013. All sorts of cars are being bought with a huge rise so far in SUV's and to a lesser extent Pickups. Luxury and Large SUV's have been doing very well .Surprisingly Luxury cars as well.

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