THE AUTOMOTIVE YEAR: Surprise of the year 2014

GM Holden is one company that has always carefully stage-managed its image, so a series of mind-blowing statements and unprecedented revelations this year has left many in the industry with knitted brows.

It started early in the year, with newly installed MD Gerry Dorizas revealing his plans for overtaking Toyota by 2020.

To suggest Holden could outsell Toyota in Australia within six years stretches credibility to the limit. Toyota cops a bagging for 'whitegoods' products, but can Holden comprehensively match it? Not at present.

The only current ace in Holden's hand is the locally-manufactured Commodore. Opel products in the pipeline will be too 'niche'. Forget overtaking Toyota by 2020, Holden should look to stay ahead of Mitsubishi in the top 10.

But wait, there's more.

Where are Mazda and Hyundai in all this? The two importers in third and fourth position for sales (or vice-versa, depending on the day) are around 7000 units behind Holden for the year to date. Both brands have been strong competitors in the VFACTS top 10 for years.

So surprise number two is that Holden thinks the two importers closing in fast from behind will stand back and allow Holden to carve up Toyota's 'excess' market share for itself. Hyundai's Genesis alone, priced and specified as it is, may conceivably outsell the front-wheel drive Insignia-based successor to the Commodore.

Surprise number three – and this one's a ripper – came with the announcement in October that Dorizas had vacated the position of MD at Holden.

Actually, that wasn't too much of a surprise. Holden's minders and PR folks had ring-fenced Dorizas in the months since his big Toyota-slaying announcement. That was abundantly clear during the launch of the updated Trax in August. Either the big boss himself had decided he needed to be cocooned away from those nasty journos, or it had been decided for him.

No surprise either that his departure was surrounded by rumours and wild accusations. He had the dealers up in arms, apparently, which might just have been propelled by this remark the same night he made it official Toyota was in the gunsights: "Dealers do not take care of their customers, retention is very low."

Did he jump, or was he pushed? We think former Holden MD Mike Devereux and a bunch of disgruntled dealers might know the answer...