Holden: the accidental brand

COMMENT

Growing up in the 1960s I was often plagued by people referring collectively to 'Holdens and Falcons'. Surely that was a mistake? 'Falcon' was a model, whereas 'Holden' was a make, a brand, a manufacturer...

This was a period of transition for Holden. The company was known as General Motors-Holden's Ltd (GM-H) – and had been since 1931. So when the company chose to name its first 'indigenous' car the 'Holden', that was the car's model name.

In those days, 'Holden' was enough to identify the model and, implicitly, the brand – GM-H.

But GM-H wasn't an especially good brand. And with GM assembling and selling Vauxhalls and Chevs in Australia at the time, there was a need for the Holden to be more explicitly distinguished from those products of GM's overseas subsidiaries.

The Holden needed its own brand.

When the flagship Premier trim level joined the range with the EJ model in 1962, it was exactly that – a grade or trim level, subservient in the hierarchy to the Holden model range.

In fact, it was the arrival of the Torana in 1967 (replacing the Vauxhall Viva) when Holden became a brand rather than a model line.

A year later, the large Holden range spawned numerous model lines – Belmont, Kingswood, Monaro, Premier and Brougham. While most of these were still basically trim levels, the two-door Monaro coupe was a distinctly different model, with base and GTS grades of its own. Similarly, the longer Brougham featured different body panels, distancing itself from other sedans in the range.

Success in touring car races generated more brand enthusiasm than ever before, and followers came to be either 'Ford' or 'Holden' fans. This was particularly the case after the six-cylinder Torana began winning races.

By the time Gemini arrived in 1975, followed by Commodore in 1978, the Holden brand was well and truly established in the minds of then younger automotive fans.

Commodore carried on Holden's winning ways on the racetrack and in the 1979 Repco Reliability Trial, locking in the loyalty of multiple generations of fans. Now, not only were you a 'Holden man' (or woman), you were also likely to follow 'Commodores' rather than 'Falcons'.

By the time HSV arrived on the scene in 1987, along with the Holden Racing Team, the Holden brand was being boosted from all sides – including ground up from the winning Commodore (not only on the track, but also multiple car of the year awards).

Fast forward to 2018 and Holden is no longer in the business of building cars in Australia – and its great success building its own brand has become an albatross around its neck.

People – former brand enthusiasts, particularly – do not want to relinquish their attachment to the brand. If forced to do so, they argue that the GM subsidiary should be renamed, making a clean break with the past. And Commodore, a name so thoroughly associated with the Holden brand, should be quietly put to rest as well, so the logic goes.

It’s early days, but already much has been made of the fact that sales of the new (imported) Commodore have not achieved the level of sales success previously attributed to the locally-built Commodore, even in its dying days. But Holden has never said it would sell the new model in those numbers.

Given the Commodore's March sales figures were apparently in the same ballpark as Ford's similarly-sized Mondeo and the Mazda6 – that's about where the sales numbers should be.

Holden has also said that it anticipates the Equinox SUV might be the company's future cash cow –selling in greater numbers than the Commodore.

With hindsight, had the first Holdens been branded Chevrolets, a name better known in Australia back in the 1940s, the Holden name would have been just another model line. And one that probably would have died with the HZ or WB models back in the early to mid-1980s.

Commodore would have been a Chevrolet, and no one would be mourning its transition from local manufacture to importation any more than those hard-core Ford fans mourning the demise of the Falcon.

There's a real chance, in fact, that GM would have made the decision to drop the Commodore name and replace the locally-built car with the Chevrolet Insignia.

Maybe, given Chevrolet is an American brand (like Ford, but unlike Holden), it might have been damaged or unsalvageable following the closure of the Elizabeth plant – and GM might have decided to drop it for the Opel brand instead.

Wouldn't that be some cause for celebration...