Holden, the Australian car marque well known for their V8 powered cars and utes, will meet its demise when parent company General Motors (GM), announced that they will cease all car manufacturing in Down Under by 2017. This is one of the restructuring moves made by GM after announcing that Chevrolet in Europe will not be getting rebadged Daewoods.
GM states that the strength of the Australian dollar has made car manufacturing in Australia unsustainable for the company. The move will shred approx 2,900 jobs over the next four years as manufacturing in Holden plants in Elizabeth and Victoria will be shut down. However Holden’s sales company, a national parts distribution center and a global design studio will remain in Australia beyond 2017.
This directly hints that a demise of the automotive industry in Australia is imminent following Ford’s similar announcement earlier this year. Mitsubishi closed their Adelaide plant five years ago, making Toyota has the only car manufacturing plant in Australia with 4,000 workers. The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union said it expected Toyota to follow Holden’s lead soon.
Holden started as a saddlery in 1856 and began manufacturing cars locally in 1948. One of Holden’s most iconic cars is the Commodore saloon, whose rivalry with the Ford Falcon spearheaded the Australian car industry for many years. It’s sad to note the era of big saloons with V8 engines will soon come to an end.
[Source: Auto Blog]
