Holden Commodore cull coming

The imported Holden Commodore is facing a model cull to coincide with a facelift expected later this year.

And it’s the diesel models most likely to get the chop.

“It [diesel] is selling in very low numbers,” admitted Holden’s Holden executive director sales Peter Keley at this week’s launch of the Colorado ute update.

“It’s one of the things we’re looking at.”

But Keley also made it clear that Commodore sales are still strong enough overall for Holden to remain committed to a badge that was a market leader during much of its locally-built history.

“We are selling the current Commodore and we are getting traction with it, so that’s our plan at the moment,” Keley said.

But he was less clear about Commodore’s longer term future after the current ZB generation expires sometime in the first half of the 2020s.

“We need to see how the market falls out,” he hedged.

There are currently 15 variants of the ZB Commodore on sale, spread across nine Liftbacks, four Sportswagons and two higher-rise models dubbed the Tourer.

There are two petrol engines on offer – a 2.0-litre turbo-petrol four-cylinder and 3.6-litre V6, as well as the single 2.0-litre turbo-diesel four-cylinder.

The diesel is optional in the LT and Calais Liftback and LT Sportwagon. Curiously, it’s never found a home in the Tourer, which might have been its most appropriate fit.

The range is also split into eight front-wheel drive and seven all-wheel drive models.

The first imported Holden Commodore has had a stuttering sales start. Holden asked Opel, which builds the car in Germany alongside it close relation the Insignia, to cease supply late in 2018 so it could clear stock. Production has since resumed in 2019.

With supply of the locally-built VF Commodore now exhausted, the ZB has settled at about 540 registrations per month according to VFACTS -- around half the total Holden had been said to be expecting when it launched the car in February 2018.

To the end of May the 2019 total its 2701 registrations dominates the now-tiny large car segment. The ZB is second behind the Toyota Camry when the medium and large segments are combined.

“We’ll be looking at rationalising, because we have too many [models] for the volume that’s available to us,” Keley said when asked about the Commodore line-up.

“The market is certainly not growing -- it’s not a growth market. But we’ve got some very good customers in the fleet area and at the end of day we do have an underlying number of private buyers as well.”

The longer-term future isn’t only uncertain for Commodore because of low sales for large passenger cars. There’s also question marks over supply, as PSA now owns Opel and production of the Insignia will eventually swap away from GM’s Epsilon II architecture to PSA underpinnings.

Former Holden boss Mark Bernhard told carsales.com.au at the launch of ZB it had a lifespan of at least six years.

While Keley was unwilling to forecast Commodore’s long-term future, he did at least indicate that a supply source had been located beyond GM: “I know and I will let you know in the fullness of time.”

Meanwhile, Keley was adamant Holden had made the right decision to retain the Commodore name, despite the furore it caused among rear-wheel drive V8 fans.

“I have no doubt calling the car anything other than a Commodore would have been a far bigger issue and so I don’t resign from the fact we made the right decision calling it a Commodore,” he said.

It’s not just the Commodore line-up Holden is rationalising.

The Colorado – easily Holden’s most successful model – has lost all its 4x2 manual variants as part of the MY20 update.