Holden Calais V 2018 Long-term Review - 4

The people who prattle on about how the locally-built Holden Commodore was irrelevant in the modern motoring age amuse me.

They are the same sort of people who eulogise our autonomous ride-sharing future, when none of us will own cars and we’ll all happily pay for a seat in a grubby pod next to meth-sucking loser and his squalling infant.

These people have clearly never seen a derestriction sign. That’s the one with a black circle and diagonal slash. Among other things it means you may have exited the cityscape, the home of gridlock, smartphones and cheek-by-jowel brick veneers.

Out here is the other Australia, the one where you drive at speed on bumpy, narrow roads with broken edges, where there are dips, ridges, off cambers and long kilometres to be covered between towns with names like Bundaberg, Tocumwal and Southern Cross.

Drive around out here and you’ll understand why people still bought Commodores – the real ones. The last time I was on these sorts of roads in a VF II Calais V I loved it. It settled into a long-legged cruise, soaking up the road’s irregularities, coping with the crap and then responding with surety when a change of direction was required. You want to argue that local tuning is just PR hype, come up here and drive.

OK, so this is a long-winded way of getting to the new imported Calais V and shit-canning it right?

After driving it on the same sorts of country roads I am going to tell you the old car was so much better and so much more suitable for Australia. I am going to say it’s a travesty calling this German all-wheel drive hatchback a Commodore.

On the last point you’re right. This car is not a Commodore (yes, or Calais) and should have been given the chance to establish its own identity. But that’s just a personal view … which my colleague Ken Gratton will no doubt debunk.

On the driving side, I look at the new car more fondly than I suspected I would have. In terms of handling it’s impressively secure for a big, heavy AWD. The ride is firm, reflecting the wheel and tyre choice, but it’s not uncomfortable. Noise intrusion is also well managed.

The localisation has certainly been effective. But no, it doesn’t drive with the all-round character of the old car. It bangs to the beat of a different drum, more like a Volkswagen Passat or Mazda 6, which in itself is a recommendation.

The Calais V’s naturally-aspirated V6 is a spiritual throwback, with its thrummy beat, positive throttle response and substantial thirst (9.6L/100km during my stint with it). The nine-speed auto is anything but nostalgic. It might just be the best bit of the whole car, such is its smooth shifting. There’s been some deft tuning here. In top gear the engine eddies along at just 1500rpm at 100km/h.

So what else did some long distance cruising reveal to me about the Calais V?

There’s lot of space, front and back seat and in the boot. Fold the rear seat down and you can fit a mountain bike with the front wheel removed. Couldn’t do that with the old Commodore… sedan anyway.

Big and supportive front seats, which didn’t pain me over the long haul.

The squeaks and rattles from the dashboard and around the head up display. It’s entirely unacceptable in a new car and something Holden has acknowledged is an assembly fault and is fixing.

Another odd noise emerged under braking, some sort of low frequency rubbing. The car kept stopping so I didn’t worry about it too much.

The persistent tendency for the Apple CarPlay switch off after a couple of minutes. Then you had to go through the whole process of connecting the phone again.

The speedo needle in the digital dial shakily accelerated like a recovering drunk with DTs.

The symbols in the infotainment screen are under-sized for those among us with less than 20/20 eyesight.

Choosing which air vents operate requires accessing the air-con settings in the touch screen. Seems a bit over-complex.

So, after a week in the Calais V I’m not unimpressed, not really impressed, not really anything much. It’s a reasonably good big car of the type people aren’t really buying much anymore.

I can’t deny my view is coloured by the respect I have for the old vehicle and the fact it was built in Australia by Australians and for Australian conditions.

And when I say Australia, I mean all of Australia, not just the bit seen from a trendy downtown apartment or from on-high in a city office building.

How much does the 2018 Holden Calais V cost?
Price: $51,990 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 3.6-litre six-cylinder petrol
Output: 235kW/381Nm
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Fuel: 9.3L/100km (as tested)
CO2: 212g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety Rating: Five-star ANCAP