Holden Caprice 2017: The last luxury Aussie Holden

When Holden stops making cars on Friday this week (October, 20), of course it’s not just the end of the line for the homegrown Commodore sedan, wagon and ute.

The long-wheelbase Caprice is done and dusted too, closing off a 43-year history of Australian-made luxury Holden sedans.

While it’s unlikely Holden will ever produce cars in Australia again, it’s not the first time it has stopped making its iconic big Aussie luxury car, born in 1967 with the HK Brougham.

In December 1984, Holden stopped producing the WB Statesman DeVille and Statesman Caprice, with no replacement in sight.

Holden banks on downsizing
Not only had the 1973 and 1979 oil crises fuelled the desire for Holden to downsize from the big HQ-HZ series (on which the Statesman was based); the company also lacked cash.

Australians were also just settling into their love affair with Japanese cars, and Holden was struggling to compete with the Japanese on price, equipment and fuel-efficiency.

Holden was presented with what it saw as an oversize family car and ageing and inefficient engines. The future looked bleak.

Its answer was the 1978 VB Commodore. Based on the Opel Rekord, it was intended to be a cheaper way for Holden to get a lighter, more compact platform (already developed by GM subsidiary Opel) on which it could sprinkle some local engineering dust to suit Aussie conditions (but ended up costing more than a ground-up development of a new car).

With Holden pushing the Commodore as its new family car (even though it was stuck with the same inefficient six- and eight-cylinder engines) there was no volume-selling large-car to replace the HZ Kingswood, therefore no Statesman replacement either.

So the only luxury car Holden offered after the last WB Statesman in December 1984 was the noticeably smaller premium VK Commodore model, the Holden Calais.

A tired concept
The 1984 Statesman DeVille Series II pictured here is actually my car – it was originally ordered by a funeral director as a mourning car. With 259,000km on its original engine, it’s getting a bit tired.

Then again, the WB series was a tired concept when it rolled out to showrooms in April, 1980. Under the skin, the WB shared much with the HQ Statesman, released almost nine years earlier.

The WB was in some ways a bit of a hybrid – even though the bulk of it was designed and made here, many components had American origins and even its designer, Leo Pruneau, turned to Cadillac for his inspiration.

The WB’s body was more than just a tarted-up rehash of its predecessor, the HZ Statesman; only the bonnet and the front doors were shared. The back half of the car was significantly changed, the longer and higher turret offering better rear headroom and the longer, squared off tail resulting in a bigger boot.

The European influence was obvious in the way the WB handled – it was no American barge, unlike most big Holdens of the 1970s. Holden had already tidied-up the woeful handling of its range post-HG, starting with the LX Sunbird in 1976 (followed in 1977 by the HZ series, and UC Torana and TD Gemini in 1978).

Holden went hard on marketing its handling reform early on, tagging the improved ‘Radial Tuned Suspension’ (a name borrowed from Pontiac).

As a point-to-point tourer for Aussie conditions, the RTS-equipped WB Statesman was just as good as — if not better than — its European rivals of the time.

Even though the WB’s 126kW 5.0-litre V8 is pretty anaemic these days – and the three-speed Tri-matic auto has a very clunky downshift – in the early 1980s, the Statesman was pretty quick and refined for a large, luxury car.

This particular WB has the front bench seat (with column-shift auto) option, which is not the most comfortable or supportive pew for long drives. The WB’s standard front buckets (with floor-shift auto) were much better: not only did the WB’s VB Commodore-based buckets have excellent lateral support, you could sit in them for a day’s drive with no complaints.

While Holden never exported enormous volumes of the HQ-WB Statesman, it was with the WB Statesman Caprice that Holden closed off what was once a relatively golden export era for its luxury car.

While numbers aren’t available for Statesman exports in the peak HQ years (1971-1974, when Holden even exported the Statesman as a Chevrolet to South Africa and Southeast Asia, and to Japan as the Isuzu Statesman DeVille), Holden was down to 21 WB Statesman exports in 1980-81, to a dribble of primarily Southeast-Asian markets such as Hong Kong.

It wasn’t until much later, after the 1999 WH Statesman was introduced, that Holden would reinvigorate exports of its big luxury car.

It wasn’t until the 2006 VE Commodore-based WM series of the same year that Holden again released a Statesman totally developed in Australia. Holden dropped the Statesman model name altogether when the WM Series II came out in 2010 (from the 1990 VQ series on, the models had been known as Holden Statesman and Holden Caprice).

The end of Aussie luxury sedans
So to the 2017 WN Caprice V Series II – what will be the finest and final limousine ever to be produced by Holden, and a close relation of the Chevrolet Caprice Police Patrol Vehicle exported to the US since 2011.

The WNII is a very good car – the 6.2-litre V8 and six-speed auto combo is simply luscious. While the WNII’s LS3 V8 has a lumpier idle than the 6.0-litre L76 in the WN, it goes harder and – unlike the L76 – sounds like a V8 should. The six-speed auto is much better too in the WNII, with smooth yet decisive shifts that the auto behind the L76 just can’t match.

The Caprice won’t embarrass itself in the corners with its well-weighted, precise steering and flat corning attitude and it has the best rear legroom in the business. Yes, this car is showing its age (it’s based on the decade-old WM, after all) and has some design flaws – the side mirrors are too small, the A-pillars too big and some of the infotainment features are a bit clunky. Yet this is a car Australia can be proud of. It just works, and work well.

Like many of my generation, I grew up with Holdens. The first car I drove was my grandfather’s 1971 HQ Premier. The problem is, there are fewer of my generation – or, in fact, any other – who want cars like this.

While the end of Caprice production this year marks the end of big, Australian-made luxury cars, at least Holden has finished on a high.

2017 Holden Caprice V pricing and specifications:
Price: $61,490 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 6.2-litre V8 petrol
Output: 304kW/570Nm
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Fuel: 12.9L/100km (ADR Combined)
CO2: 300g/km (ADR Combined)
Safety rating: Five-star ANCAP

1984 Holden Statesman DeVille pricing and specifications:
Price: $19,772 (plus on-road costs)
Engine: 5.0-litre V8 petrol
Output: 126kW/361Nm
Transmission: Three-speed automatic
Fuel: n/a
CO2: n/a
Safety rating: n/a