Move over Toyota, Holden's gunning for No1

Holden may appear to have its hands full with launching airships and the new VE Commodore but, in the words of Bachman Turner Overdrive, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Boss Denny Mooney has made it clear the Lion is gunning for number one. And he’s not pinning his plans on one large car -- just around the corner are a swag of new Holdens set to substantially change the face of the brand -- or at least the look of Holden dealers’ showrooms.

CarPoint has been gifted a sneak peek at the rest of Holden’s year. The leak, it’s claimed, comes after the company ‘roadshowed’ its VE Commodore and second-half 2006 plans to employees.

Key to the rest of 2006 is the launch of two new model ranges – the Captiva SUV and a Camry/Mazda6/Accord competitor with a difference.

Both vehicles have been spotted on the road around Holden’s headquarters in Port Melbourne (Vic) with light camouflage. Indeed, the cursory disguises are now limited to dark tape over the Holden and model name badging front and rear. During the recent VE Commodore media briefings at HQ both Captiva and the medium car (called Epica in some markets) models were parked in plain sight.

According to CarPoint’s source, the Captiva (for more details click

CarPoint believes that only all-wheel drive Captiva models will be offered at launch. This clears the way for a front-wheel drive base model to arrive later. One wilder suggestion is that Holden will eventually offer a version of the Opel Antara two-door concept ‘offroad coupe’ (pictured) as a halo model for the Captiva range. Don’t hold your breath.

Already on sale in Europe and the Middle East under the nameplate, Epica (also pictured), Holden’s Vectra replacement is the final major launch for 2006. Built by GM Daewoo in South Korea, the car will launch Down Under in November with a feature none of its key medium car rivals can offer – a six-cylinder engine.

The six powers the front wheels but unlike most front-wheel drive six-cylinder applications, it is an inline engine rather than a V6.

The engine will be offered in two versions: 2.0 and 2.5-litres. According to our sources, the 104kW/187Nm base model will be available with a five-speed manual only (unlike Europe). The 115kW/240Nm 2.5-litre will be five-speed auto only.

A 110kW/310Nm 2.0-litre four-cylinder common-rail turbodiesel engine will be launched in Epica in Europe in 2007. No news on whether that powerplant will make in to Australia.

Although CarPoint is unable to confirm that Holden will use the Epica nameplate, model variants are like to follow the lead set by Vectra and Astra.

The range is claimed to kick off with a manual 2.0-litre CDX model from $24,990. The 2.5-litre auto CDX will be around $2000 more with range-topping CDXi from $29,990. Expect ESP to be standard across the range.

How the local market will react to buying a six-cylinder medium car while fuel prices are still a hot topic will be interesting to watch. That Holden will pitch its six against Toyota’s four-cylinder Camry puts another spin on Toyota chairman emeritus John Conomos’ comments at the recent launch of the Camry.

As reported by CarPoint (for more click

"Six cylinders seems to be the determinant in changing buyer habits towards four-cylinder cars… The vehicle price doesn't really change that much and the fuel consumption itself is not that much in terms of difference, but the perception of people of the need to act differently has created what I think is a new paradigm," Conomos said.

Two other Holden models are also likely to make their debuts Down Under in late 2006 according to CarPoint sources. Holden is claimed to be set to confirm the arrival of Astra Twin Top. The attractive two-door features a folding steel roof (as shown hereabouts) in the coupe-convertible mold.

The other new model mooted is a special-spiced up Astra SRi. Looking to crash Mazda’s SP23 party, the three or five-door SRi will reputedly feature a 2.2-litre engine, six-speed manual or four-speed auto gearbox and a full complement of safety equipment including ESP.

Holden declined to comment on the leak, categorizing the information as chatroom speculation.

Jason Laird, National Manager Media Relations for Holden told CarPoint: "We don't discuss our future product plans.”

“We'll launch Captiva later in the year and talk about pricing then. The other cars are available to us through GM partners and each could certainly fill a place in the portfolio," Laird said.

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