[Commodoreman2000]

I know many of our US friends may or may not be interested in this, however it is placed here in the Holden section more for those who have a love of Holden and Australian ingenuity and manufacturing.

http://www.change.org/en-AU/petitio...&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition

I know it may seem a pointless exercise however to do nothing is to just simply give up and lay down.

 

[z51vett]

Its not about just saving the car industry its about jobs and skills. The economy will feel this when ford and GM both leave. More dock workers to unload cars lower pay less workers.
z51vett
Doug

 

[chevypwr]

Its not about just saving the car industry its about jobs and skills. The economy will feel this when ford and GM both leave. More dock workers to unload cars lower pay less workers.
z51vett
Doug

Yup. Supporting the local economy is key to the growth of the rest of the local economy and even the nation as it has a domino effect. Even the ma and pa diner close to the factory will feel it.

 

[z51vett]

Yup. Supporting the local economy is key to the growth of the rest of the local economy and even the nation as it has a domino effect. Even the ma and pa diner close to the factory will feel it.

Saw that here in Atlanta when GM and Ford closed car plants and one Service parts operation for GM. Close to 10,000 jobs gone not counting supplier jobs and local mom and pops diners and other operations. People would not hire former GM or Ford employees afraid they might unionize there business's.
z51vett
Doug

 

[Commodoreman2000]

We're looking at up to 13000 people out of work and that is just across the supply chain. It doesn't count small business. That's just in SA many thousands more across the country

 

[monaroCountry]

Im all for supporting workers but sometimes feel that taxpayers should not be carrying them. After all when most people have been unemployed there hasn't been anyone to carry them. So a little support is warranted but there must be a limit. I think $300 million that the government is asking is way too much i.e. $300,000,000 / 13,000 = $2307 pp. I think capping it off to $1,000 would be the go.

 

[Commodoreman2000]

Im all for supporting workers but sometimes feel that taxpayers should not be carrying them. After all when most people have been unemployed there hasn't been anyone to carry them. So a little support is warranted but there must be a limit. I think $300 million that the government is asking is way too much i.e. $300,000,000 / 13,000 = $2307 pp. I think capping it off to $1,000 would be the go.

I'm a bit funny like that with the Government support, I agree with support for the short term but ultimately a Company should be able to right its business model.
Our Governments (both sides of politics) over the last 30 years have slowly eroded protections and tariffs for the Auto industy to virtually nill, then there are Free Trade Agreements that were implemented with our Asian neighbours that tended to favour Imports into Australia eg: Thailand IIRC exported around 200 thousan plus cars into Aus and due to non tariff barriers ie: displacement charge on vehicles over 3 litres (which besides Camry and Cruze every other car is over that limit. Ford Australia exported a total of 100 Territories to Thailand and due to taxes put it in the same price league as Luxury Beemers and Mercs without the quality.
What the ultimate answer is I don't know but I believe it is still viable to build and engineer in this Country but emphasis needs to be on high value Niche Global models for it to be viable.

There is a much more in depth back story I have heard from Insiders of how Holden has been slowly gutted from within circa 2004 after Peter Hanenberger was given a Golden Handshake. When he left Holden were on 3 shifts and there was to be a vast portfolio of Commodore derivatives that would have mirrored the VZ range from sedan,wagon,ute, AWD models as well as RWD models Adventra, Crewman, 1 tonner, Monaro/GTO aka Coupe60. pretty much all of it was canned when the new guy took over (Denny Mooney from memory)
Mark Reuss corrected some of those awfull decisions (he said 6 speed Autos across the board plus lifted the interior quality for VE series II when he took the reigns but by then the damage was done,


Wow that was an awesome Rant feel better now though, cheers for letting me unload some frustration

 

[monaroCountry]

CommodoreMan 2000, you would have seen this post from GolfBravo.

Originally Posted by GolfBravo

Mooney taking over from (pushed) Hanenberger was a great cultural shock for everyone at Holden. From day 1. Within first week at Holden Mooney was explaining to everyone why Holden was a failure - according to Mooney Holden was no longer the greatest Australian manufacturer, it wasn't making great cars anymore (it had to "manufacture great products, just like Ta-yoda"), and suddenly it couldn't even afford the engineering department nor the cafeteria.

The amount of budget slashing at Holden was simply unprecedented. At one stage, during only 1 week, he managed to: cancel VE Ute, VE Wagon, announced headcount freeze (one of the directors in charge of VE left, so a co-op student had to do his job for 3 months - no joke, true story), budget freeze (the whole HQ building couldn't do any work for over a month), reinstate the Wagon, then cancel it again, and then reinstate both the Ute and Wagon again, heavily de-content the VE (even removed standard bluetooth to save $1.12 per car), fired over 20 local suppliers and then fired over 400 engineers, closed the Middle East export department, and then cancelled VE series 2 ("why do we need to facelift the VE? Ta-yoda isn't facelifting their cars"). Can you imagine what the morale at Fishermans Bend was like? People were shell-shocked.

Under Mooney Holden started making stupid TV commercials - to save costs everything had to be outsourced, and pretty much the cheapest ad agency would always get the job. So Holden would get all the "bargain" advertising briefs previously rejected by other manufacturers.

Did Holden abandon the large cars field? Yes, in a way - from 2005, for a number of years, Holden was too focused on Ta-yoda Avalon/Camry/Aurion. Instead of slaughtering the competition with the best car, Holden was too busy with matching whatever Toyota was selling. Dumbed-down advertising included. No wonder people lost interest.

Denny was actually more interested in positioning Cadillac in Australia and went on and on about it. He also started the export decline to the Middle East, handing over the reigns of Commodore export to Chevrolet America (who practically replace it with an inferior Chevrolet sourced replacement).

and another from insider GolfBravo

The Adventra was a great off-roader.

The VE Adventra project (originally planned for release within 12 months of VE sedan/sportwagon/ute simultaneous launch) was culled during the first round of 2004 engineering redundancies. The main excuse to cancel Adventra was the mega f/up with the original Adventra launch and production ramp up.

In 2002, I think, GM Worldwide Purchasing department went through the final Adventra part/supplier approval process (read: GM penny pinching process). One of their decisions was to revise the front and rear bumper designs to save just under $60 per car. GM Worldwide Purchasing decided to eliminate the two part/two tone front and rear bumpers and replace them with a single part/two tone bumpers (less tooling required = less $$$). At that time GM actually had a procedure for bumper manufacturing, and the procedure dictated either a single part bumper with uncoated and paint coated surfaces, or a fully coated part - and back then the procedure was more important to GM than the car. The decision was made in Detroit and they were not getting into any further discussions.

Anyway, Holden launched the Adventra and within the first 4 weeks there were 1800 customer orders in the system - it was a highly anticipated car. The problem was that Holden could only build 8 Adventras a day: there were 2 blokes in the paint shop firstly masking the bumpers and then spray painting them. It was such a mundane and difficult process that they could only manage 16 (perfect) bumpers a day. And this was the GM Worldwide Purchasing designed process. Eventually they hired and trained some extra paint shop staff.

The customers were screaming for their cars, and Holden dealers were screaming for showroom stock (customers need to see/drive/touch/smell cars to buy them). By the time the order bank reached 3500 customer orders, Holden Distribution Dept made the decision to stop taking further orders untill the situation was fully under control. About 4 months after the original launch Holden opened their order books again. And it took over 4 months for most dealers to receive their first stock Adventras.

All this was happening during the Hanenberger-Mooney transition, so Mooney immediately put the next Adventra into the too difficult basket and eventually killed it, citing original Adventra cost blow outs and slow initial sales.

The VE Adventra plans were great: V8 and V6 petrol, and even VM Motori V6 diesel (eventually decided to go with LPG).

GM's nastiest slime, son of satan

 

[Commodoreman2000]

Yep I saw that post. It confirmed all the rumors I have heard over the years. Basically pulled apart so shut down can be justified from the bean counters end for whatever reason.
The Adventra, especially the LPG and Diesel would have sold very well even if offered as an AWD or straight RWD, I for one would have bought one instead of the Rav4 I ended up getting for work (worst POS I ever had the pleasure to steer)
I still believe Automaking is viable with access to a Global market for volume regardless of whether it's Captiva like vehicle or a RWD V6/V8 Performance Sedan,Wagon etc sure not as big as it once was but people out there still want these types of cars.

That photo of Mooney is a little creepy to say the least. And last reference I found he left GM in 09.