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      02-19-2020, 12:26 PM   #12
mkoesel
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ShocknAwe View Post
They'd have to design a new sport saloon from scratch...
Not strictly true. As I mentioned earlier, most of Holden's vehicles in recent decades have been rebadged GM products sold elsewhere under other brand names. The Commodore was locally grown until 2017, but since then it has been a rebadged Insignia. Even though GM is killing off almost all of their sedans in the US (just like Ford and FCA) they continue to manufacture sedans in other parts of the world and those could have continued to serve as the basis for GM cars in Australia. And of course the same holds true for SUVs and pickup trucks. So available product was not the barrier.

Furthermore, while it's true that the Holden brand name itself had become unnecessary, and it's not a huge surprise they'd eventually decide to retire the nameplate to cut costs, the fact that GM has decided to pull out of the region entirely (aside from some specialty performance vehicles) instead of simply switching to Chevrolet or GMC or another of their brands does come as a bit of a shock.

By contrast, Ford and FCA remain in AU, as do most other large global automakers.
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