VF Commodore to debut in US

Holden will reveal its next-generation VF Commodore in the US next February.

The redesigned MY14 Commodore will make its first appearance at the 2013 Daytona 500 in Florida on February 23-24 – the same weekend Chevrolet’s all-new Commodore-look NASCAR racer will make its US race debut.

Speaking at yesterday’s launch of the new Colorado ute, GM Holden Chairman and Managing Director Mike Devereux told motoring.com.au that the opportunity to reveal Holden’s next Commodore at one of North America’s largest sporting events was too good to miss.

“You’ll see it at Daytona,” he said when asked where and when the new Commodore would be revealed, following last month’s official announcement that Chevrolet’s all-new 2013 NASCAR, which will make its debut at the opening round of next year’s Sprint Cup, will be based on the all-new 2014 Chevy SS – the North American twin of Holden’s upcoming VF Commodore.

Mr Devereux, who has previously confirmed the VF Commodore will go on sale here in 2013, indicated that Holden was keen to keep the heavily facelifted Holden under wraps until as close as possible to the much-anticipated car’s late-2013 local launch, in order to minimise the sales impact on the outgoing VE II Commodore.

But he said the publicity value of revealing the redesigned version of Holden’s most popular model in front of a global audience of unprecedented proportions – even if it was outside Australia - superseded Holden’s desire to keep its VF Commodore powder dry until closer to the car’s launch.

“The advantages of showing the car there outweigh the disadvantages of having a gap (between reveal and release) that’s longer than usual,” he said.

“It’s obvious we want to tie into the NASCAR season, so it’d be a huge lost opportunity if we didn’t do that.”

As evidenced by spy shots of both the 2014 Commodore and the Chevy-badged SS, the VF will be a heavily facelifted version of the VE that dates back to 2006.

It will come with the same roof and doors, although a new bonnet, bumpers and quarter panels will present all-new front and rear-end styling for Australia’s top-selling large car, which was also the nation’s most popular car overall for 15 years until the Mazda3 stole its crown last year.

Changes underneath the next Commodore’s new front and rear skin run deeper, in the form of advanced driver-aid technologies as well as aerodynamic and light-weighting measures designed to reduce fuel consumption to around 8.5L/100km, thanks in part to a $39.8 million federal government Green Car Innovation Fund co-investment grant.

Although it rides on a modified version of the billion-dollar VE Commodore’s Zeta chassis architecture, upgrades for the VF Commodore – are extensive.

Helping to reduce the Commodore’s fuel consumption by at least seven per cent while increasing performance will be more extensive use of thin high-strength steel, revised suspension components, lightweight headlights assemblies, a plastic spare wheel well and lighter plastic-moulded door trims.

New VF technologies will include electric power steering, an electric parking brake, a collision warning system, blind-spot monitoring and keyless starting.

While Australia’s next Commodore is now confirmed to appear in a little over eight months, North America’s rebadged Chevy SS is expected to make its public debut at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit next January.

When it goes on sale in the US late next year – around the same time the VF Commodore is launched locally, the Chevy SS will represent Holden’s first US exports since the demise of the Commodore SS-based Pontiac G8, which was discontinued when GM killed off the historic Pontiac brand as part of its restructure during Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

However, Mr Devereux reiterated recent comments by GM officials who indicated the Chevy SS – the brand’s first rear-drive 'civilian' sedan in 17 years - would be a premium-priced, low-volume model, by saying export numbers would not approach those of the G8.

“Our car will be the top-of-the-line Chevrolet and it’s going to be a NASCAR,” he said. “Demand will be greater than supply. It will be nothing like G8 volumes. G8 sold 40,000 (units annually) when the (Australian) dollar was much lower.”

However, the Chevy SS sedan is likely to be shipped to the US from Holden’s Adelaide plant in greater numbers than the long-wheelbase Caprice-based Chevrolet Caprice Police Patrol Vehicle (PPV).

Just 1422 examples of the Holden-made US cop car were registered in North America over the past year, following higher than expected transaction prices due to the soaring Australian currency, but Mr Devereux said between 3000 and 4000 examples would be shipped this year.

Holden exported just over 12,000 vehicles to the US, Middle East, New Zealand, South Africa and Brazil last year – more than 50 per cent up on its 2011 total but only about a third of the 36,000-plus it shipped to overseas markets led by the Middle East in 2007.

Mr Devereux said Holden’s recent move to reduce the number of daily shifts at its Elizabeth plant from two to one – while reducing the amount of time to produce each vehicle, from 104 seconds to just 60, and reducing the daily rate from 440 to 400 vehicles – aimed to streamline the production process for both the small Cruze sedan/hatch and large Commodore sedan/wagon/ute – for both domestic and overseas consumption.

“We have to have an intelligent approach,” he said. “We’ve got to price and plan for volumes we can live with consistently, whether the (Australian) dollar’s 95 cents or $1.10 (US). We have to absorb price fluctuations of up to 20 per cent, so it’s about balancing domestic demand with US demand.

Mr Devereux said there was “no compelling reason” to add the upcoming Cruze ‘Sportwagon’ to the Elizabeth production, even if sales soared following its release as one of the few small wagons available in Australia, where it will go on sale in the fourth quarter of this year.

This week’s new Colorado will be Holden’s most important model this year in terms of sales volumes, but also due for release in late 2012 is the seven-seat Colorado 7 SUV and the ground-breaking Volt plug-in hybrid, with the new Malibu medium sedan and all-new Trax compact SUV to follow by mid-2013.

While the VF Commodore is expected to continue on sale until around 2018, Holden in March announced a billion-dollar program – including $275 million in government funding – based on two all-new next-generation global vehicle architectures that would guarantee its Australian manufacturing operations until at least 2022.

Holden is already believed to be helping design the replacement for the Delta II-based Cruze expected to appear by 2016, while the VF Commodore will be replaced by an all-new model based on one of those new global GMs architectures – likely to be either the Malibu’s front-drive Epsilon II platform or the compact rear-drive platform that underpins Cadillac’s new ATS.

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