Holden's best production cars

The GM Holden design studio in Port Melbourne officially shuts tomorrow (Friday, October 30).

Opened in 1964, it was a cutting-edge copy of The General’s Warren studio in Detroit, just in miniature.

“It really was the bee’s knees,” says Richard Ferlazzo. “For the size of this country it was a massive commitment.

“All the elements needed for a proper studio were here. It was a big call.”

Ferlazzo joined Holden’s design department from Toyota in 1988 and rose through the ranks to become the final leader of what has most recently been known as General Motors Australia Design.

Yesterday, Ferlazzo guided us through the greatest concepts to emerge from this studio. Today, it’s the production cars.

If you’re wondering why the 48-215 isn’t here, remember that was done way before this studio opened and was fundamentally a US design.

While Holden had its advanced new tech centre up and running in 1964, the reality was local designers still struggled to gain freedom from their American bosses in Detroit.

The design of the EJ/EH and the HD Holden that replaced them was dictated from the US. The HR was a pleasing local evolution of the HD and then came the new-generation HK.

While the mainstream cars were straight-forward, Holden’s designers planted their flag with the Monaro two-door coupe.

A pillarless two-door Kingswood developed under the direction of Joe Schemansky, the Monaro was the first Holden passion play. It appealed to the heart with its swooping lines rather than the way other three- and two-box Holdens spoke to the head.

It broke cover six months after the rest of the HK range and came in everything from a 186ci I6 to the fire-breathing V8 GTS 327 that went on to sweep the rostrum at Bathurst.

Ferlazzo says: “The Monaro, even today, that is a very elegant ’60s coupe that probably because of its size – and the same goes for the cars that followed it, including the HQ – was probably better than its American counterparts.

“It was a bit smaller and if you look at some of the Chevys and Pontiacs they look a bit heavy. Ours feel more taut and more athletic.

“Monaros are still large cars but not by American standards of the day.”

Not as feted as the larger LH/LX Toranas that followed it, the LC was actually based on the platform of the smaller four-cylinder HB Torana.

Extending the platform and moving the front wheels forward enabled the fitment of a six-cylinder engine and the long bonnet look that is a cornerstone of Peter Nankervis’ swooping and elegant design.

It’s not hard to see influences here developed in the iconic HQ Holden a couple of years later.

The ultimate version of the Torana was the fabulous GTR-XU1, made famous by Peter Brock’s Falcon-slaying performances at Bathurst.

Ferlazzo says: “Some of your readers may not agree but I think the LC is a fabulous effort.

“I didn’t know until I started here and talked to Peter Nankervis that it was based on HB. It was such an elegant little car. It’s almost a coupe with its very fast line off the roof into the tail lamps.

“That was pretty daring in those days. It was a sporty coupe-ish thing that could be two- or four-door and translated very well into performance versions in the GTR and XU1s as a look and a shape.

“I think it’s a fabulous effort. Designing an all-new car is one thing, a greater challenge is when you are heavily restricted.”

A sedan so good-looking it remains among the very best designs ever produced in Australia, let alone by Holden.

Like the best Holden large cars through the decades, the HQ’s fundamental proportions were so good it effortlessly transformed from econo-box fleet model to roaring V8 sports sedan.

Designed by young American John Schinella, the HQ could have its cabin lopped in half and be transformed into a ute, or equally as well have it stretched to become a wagon.

A longer wheelbase enabled the creation of the first Statesman; a coupe body and the Monaro came to life.

While the HQ was an incredible success, selling more than 500,000 examples in three years, the reality is it wasn’t a great car to drive. Beauty sells.

Ferlazzo says: “I was born in 1961 and we were living in Windsor, New South Wales, and I was the youngest of three boys. My dad took us all down to the Windsor Holden dealer to check out the range of these new Holdens because he had an EH and he was dreaming of buying a new one.

“We jumped from car to car and I still remember today there was a Monaro with the houndstooth cloth. I remember sitting in the Statesman and thinking, ‘Oh my God it’s like a jet plane in here’. It had the paisley fabric and the embossed wood and all that sort of stuff and I thought, ‘Jeez, wow’.

“The HQ qualifies for a number of reasons. There was a massive range of vehicles that came with that. These were the halcyon days, they really peaked for range then. Sedans, coupes, panel vans, utes, one-tonners, long wheelbase. It was all there.

“Even today it looks good and there’s your proof of longevity. If you can look at it over the ages and say you still appreciate it, even if style and proportions change over time.

“In those days a droopy rear-end was fashionable. Now, of course, it’s high back. There is no right and wrong in design, there is only good and bad execution – and they were beautifully executed.”

Like its predecessors (VB-VL), the VN owed much to GM’s German division Opel. However, it grew in size to match the rival Ford Falcon.

In terms of design, Holden made a concerted effort to chart a more independent course with a local interpretation of the aero look so prevalent across the industry.

The SS V8 joined the VN range as full-time model, when it had previously been a homologation special for racing. It would go on to become a cornerstone of the Commodore line-up.

Ferlazzo says: “The VN was significant even though it is very clean and simple. It was in that era of aero with flush glass and things.

“I can’t say it was a beautiful car but it was an important car because it turned our fortunes around.”

Like the HQ 26 years earlier, the third-generation Commodore (VT-VZ) delivered remarkable style and outstanding versatility.

Under the direction of Michael Simcoe, these days in charge of GM design globally, Holden’s designers flourished.

The VT, for which Ferlazzo led exterior design, was a big sedan that could be graceful or sporty depending on the details. It could also be simply huge as the wagon proved.

It evolved into a ute, the fabulous long-wheelbase WH Statesman and Caprice and then – with ambitious Holden chief Peter Hanenberger relentlessly driving the organisation onwards – became the basis for the third-generation Monaro (which in turn spawned the reborn Pontiac GTO), the Adventra AWD wagon and Crewman dual-cab ute.

The VT Commodore simply eviscerated the rival Ford Falcon AU in the sales race, selling more than 90,000 examples in its first full year.

That forced the blue oval to spend $500 million on the mightily impressive BA mid-life update to get back into the large car fight.

Ferlazzo says: “The VT was a milestone car. It is a beautiful car even though once again sprung off the Opel of the time. There were no common parts though, the only bits we kept were the front-side door glass and the B-pillar cover.

“It had to be widened and lengthened and all sorts of stuff.

“It’s not because we didn’t have the capability [to do a clean-sheet design], it was purely political; ‘You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, what’s wrong with these German cars, they’re good enough for Germany, they are good enough for Australia…’ They weren’t.

“So we made them happy by using the Opel as a springboard and then we’d say: ‘It needs to be wider and longer and our engines are different’ and this and that. Before you know it there’s nothing much left. By osmosis you end up designing a new car.

“I remember we got a lot of flak from the Ford designers saying how bland the VT was. They would tell us: ‘Watch out for the AU’.

The last Commodore was the best, the longest-lasting and the most expensive to bring to the showroom at more than $1 billion.

The ambition underpinning it was huge. While large car sales were diminishing in Australia, Holden had developed the new Zeta rear- and all-wheel drive architecture so it could be the design and engineering homeroom for a variety of models for GM’s multiple brands around the globe.

The fifth-generation Chevrolet Camaro was the best example of what Holden hoped to achieve. There was also the popular Pontiac G8 (a V8 Commodore) and the Chevrolet PPV (a police car based on the Caprice) and SS (another Commodore V8), but they were rebadged rather than rebodied.

Tightening fuel standards, the global financial crisis, GM’s bankruptcy and the axing of Pontiac ruined Holden’s grand plan. The course from there to the 2017 factory closure pretty much ran in a straight line.

Nevertheless, as a design the VE was a brilliant success, capable of shape-shifting depending on requirements and the flourishes added to the beautifully proportioned base package developed by Peter Hughes.

Later Ferlazzo would drive the creation of the stunning Sportwagon, a complete change of philosophy for Holden wagons and among the best-looking vehicles ever produced in this genre.

The VE gave way to the VF in 2013. A convincing update, it included such stunners as the VFII SS-V Redline. Affordable, incredible fun and so good-looking. What a way to go out.

Ferlazzo says: “We saved the best to last.

“The ingredients were there. We had a large rear-wheel drive vehicle with a long dash-to-axle and we fought hard for the short overhangs front and rear.

“It was a lot of vehicle for the money. I can’t think of anywhere else in the world where you can get a vehicle of that sort of spec, size and mass for the money.

“The size of the A-pillars were criticised but that was an engineering thing not a design thing. And that’s a function of the strength of the vehicle.

“It was probably over-cooked but then you had to realise the A-pillars were common with the long wheelbase, the ute, the wagons and all sorts of things. Hence the rockers were heavy, the B-pillar was heavy and so was the A-pillar.

“We were developing SUVs to rival the Ford Territory but we just couldn’t get it across the line because we couldn’t get an export market.

“I was thinking we shouldn’t give up on wagons although the Americans were saying, ‘Wagons stink, no-one wants those, they’re for middle-age guys who aren’t getting any sex…’

“But the fact was there was always a European-style wagon lurking in there.

“We didn’t create the Sportwagon concept but I think we produced one of the best examples of it.”

The Port Melbourne crew were either responsible for or contributed to many international designs through the years.

The seven-seat version of the Chevrolet Blazer that went on sale in China only months ago is a classic example.

While Ferlazzo doesn’t nominate it as one of the studio’s greatest design achievements, he highlights it as an example of the sort of work the versatile Holden team could and did address with skill and flair.

Ferlazzo says: “There are many concepts and production cars we worked on that were never seen here.

“The Blazer five-seater was developed elsewhere, but the seven-seater was our job here in Australia.”

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