A 23-day lap of Australia is set to determine whether the struggling Commodore lives up to its big car promise.
To some it might be the ultimate road trip, while for others it could be a 23-day torture test behind the wheel.
Fairfax’s Drive team today embarked on Australia’s longest road test – a 14,514km lap of Australia designed as the ultimate test of a car on the ropes, Holden’s new VF Holden Commodore.
Leaving from Sydney two drivers will spend a combined 187 hours behind the wheel through every state, territory and capital city in Australia.
From the challenging – and potentially icy - Snowy Mountains and twisting Tasmanian roads to Australia’s longest piece of straight bitumen on the Nullarbor Plain and the red dirt and heat of the Top End, the V6-powered $46,990 Calais V will experience a year’s worth of driving in less than a month.
It’s designed to test the mettle of the Commodore over some of the world’s most punishing and challenging roads and determine whether it lives up to the big-car-for-a-big-country mantra it’s sold on since replacing the Kingswood in 1978.
The former sales darling – it topped the sales charts for 15 consecutive years – the Commodore has been battling to stay on the list of the top 10 sellers as buyers shift to small cars and SUVs.
Holden chairman and managing director Mike Devereux calls the VF Commodore a “no excuses” make or break car designed to put the Commodore back on shopping lists. If it fails to at least stem the sales slide Holden says it could mean the end of local production in Australia
"This is about changing a lot of preconceptions about our brand," said Devereux at last week’s media launch, which was overshadowed by Ford’s announcement to end its 88-year run of Australian vehicle production. "Critically we need to stop having people thinking that Holden makes really good cars for somebody else and have them start thinking that Holden makes really great cars for me. Commodore will do that."
The shift away from large cars took its biggest scalp last week, with Ford announcing it would retire the Falcon name when its Victorian factories finally close their doors in 2016.
But while the Australian dollar may be coming down from its historic highs it’s a double-edged sword for local car makers who still specialise in larger cars that use more fuel than the small cars that make up most sales in Australia. That’s because fuel prices are creeping up.
The Commodore uses 6 per cent less fuel than the model it replaces according to its official fuel label, but our test will reveal exactly how much it will use in real world driving – likely to be at least 30 per cent above the 8.3 litres per 100km claim of the most fuel efficient entry-level model.
Drive’s Around Australia trip left Sydney today and will finish in Sydney on June 20.
You can follow the Commodore’s trip around Australia with regular updates on Drive.com.au plus across Drive’s Facebook, Twitter (using the #DriveAroundOz hash-tag) and Google Plus pages.
