Holden's imported Commodore to target SV6 buyers

Holden plans to aim its marketing forces at current owners of SV6 Commodores, when the new imported model built by Opel arrives around the end of January next year.

It's counter-intuitive for those caught up in the romance and nostalgia of Holden's V8 Commodores. Many of those fans have presumed that the 'next-gen' model (pictured) – a front-wheel drive – will be all but unsellable without a V8 or, at the very least, drive to the rear wheels.

That doesn't even come close to the truth of the matter, says Holden's Director of Communications, Sean Poppitt.

"SV6 private buyers have been our biggest pool of buyers – and have been for a number of years," he told motoring.com.au yesterday. Those SV6 owners won't necessarily walk away from the brand just because the next Commodore doesn't offer a V8 option. They should be more amenable to a replacement that does everything and more that their current car does – short of drifting?.

"We're going to offer in almost every conceivable measure a superior car, as you would expect of a next-generation model. It won't be rear-drive and won't be locally-manufactured," says Poppitt.

"That will change some people's minds and they'll say: 'no, I'm not going to go down that path'. That is absolutely their prerogative. We'd love for them to stay in the brand and offer them a Commodore or Colorado, but if they don't then we thank them for everything they've done for us...

"But at the same time, if you're after technology and refinement, then the next-gen Commodore will be another leap ahead of what we've got at the moment."

According to Poppitt, while the SV6 has been consistently the most popular drivetrain variant in the Commodore range in recent times, 2017 has seen V8 sales lift almost to the point of parity with the V6s.

"V8s are going to be close to 50/50, but if you look over the last three years, the average has been nearly three quarters of buyers have been the V6 buyer, and that's private buyers.

"We're seeing a massive swell of [nostalgia] this year in particular, because it is the final year. That is a very emotional topic...

"But if you look at buyer behaviours over the past three or four years, people are voting with their wallets – and going with what they feel offers the best package, and next-gen Commodore certainly offers that."

If 2017 represents a spike in Commodore sales, the imported model can be expected to fall into a deep trough next year. But that's just a hastening of a trend that has been in place over the past couple of decades. Poppitt acknowledges that customers who formerly bought cars like the Commodore have been progressively migrating to smaller cars or SUVs.

"It's actually not entirely true that people are moving away from large cars… moving away from large sedans? Absolutely… 100 per cent," he said, citing SUVs as the big winners from the ongoing sedan exodus.

What he didn't say was that the next-gen Commodore won't technically be a sedan anyway. Its liftback tailgate places it on essentially a level playing field with the Ford Mondeo, although the Commodore will be slightly larger than the Ford.

The Mondeo, including the wagon, only sold 3122 units in Australia last year. A further point of difference for Commodore is that it will offer that V6 alternative to Ford's exclusively four-cylinder Mondeo.

How all that plays out in the market will be the subject of much discussion in pubs around the nation, we're tipping.

But one thing is certain, if you own a Commodore SV6, and purchased it new, you can expect to start receiving offers and invites from Holden… right about now.