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General Motors announced on Monday that it would axe the Holden brand, saying it would exit the ‘highly fragmented right-hand-drive market’ and ‘retire’ the Australian marque by 2021. We look back at the history of the Australian carmaker, which has produced some of the country’s most recognisable and best-loved vehicles
Ben Chifley, then Australian prime minister, at the 1948 launch of ‘Australia’s own car’, the General Motors Holden 48-215 (often referred to as the Holden FX). General Motors says it will ‘retire’ the Holden brand by 2021. Photograph: National Motor Museum/Heritage Images
1856 – Saddlery opens
James Alexander Holden opened his Holden saddlery in Adelaide and quickly became a reputable manufacturer of horse saddles, harnesses and equipment. The company supplied equestrian equipment in the Boer War. It gradually began to change its focus to manufacturing vehicle hardware.
In 1887 James’s son Henry James Holden took over the business after his father’s death, setting Holden on the path to becoming one of Australia’s leading car manufacturers.
Joyce Lee Lewes and Aubrey Eager in front of the first Holden to come off the assembly line at the General Motors-Holden plant in Sydney’s Pagewood in the late 1940s. Photograph: Supplied by the Lee Lewes family
1917 – Entry into the automotive industry
Holden took its first step into vehicle production when it began making car bodies for imported Chevrolet chassis. Holden was the first company to assemble bodies for Ford in Australia and by 1924 was the exclusive supplier in Australia of car bodies for the US-based General Motors.
An historical General Motors Holden car advertisement. Photograph: Paul Mayall/Alamy
1931 – GM Australia and Holden merge
General Motors in Australia merged with Holden to become General Motors-Holden’s Ltd. Ford and General Motors-Holden’s dominated the fledgling automotive industry during this period.
Sir Eric Harrison, the Australian high commissioner in London, inspects the first of five 1958 Holden sedan cars to arrive at Australia House in London, in December 1958. The cars were made in Australia and carry an Australian plate. Photograph: Reg Speller/Getty Images
1948 – ‘Made in Australia’
Holden manufactured the FX 48-215, the first car “made in Australia, for Australia”. Ben Chifley, the Labor prime minister, launched production of the car on 29 November, describing the FX as a “beauty”. The model was enormously successful, leading to waiting lists stretching almost a year ahead from when the car was first released. A total of 120,402 cars were made in its six-year run. Holden continued its ascendancy throughout the 1950s and 60s, introducing many new models.
Robert Webb with his four sons and their 1959 Holden ute in Dappo, near Narromine, NSW. Photograph: Peter Rae/Getty Images
1980 – Holden begins to struggle
Holden’s fortunes began to change in the 1980s. Australia’s automotive industry was starting to struggle and the company closed its production plant in the Sydney suburb of Pagewood in 1980. The federal government introduced the Button car plan, trying to rationalise and consolidate the automotive industry by lowering import tariffs.
An old Holden in front of a bungalow in Invermay, Tasmania. Photograph: Peter Cooper/FlickrVision
2006 – Holden losses continue
A market surge during the 1990s was arrested in the early 2000s, leading to large losses for Holden. Between 2005 and 2006 Holden’s profits suffered further, with a combined loss of $290m. The company continued to reduce its workforce, cutting 1,400 jobs after closing its third-shift assembly line.
The new Holden Monaro, launched in 2001, was the first Monaro released in about 25 years. Photograph: Tim Graham/Getty Images
2008 – GFC hits automotive industry
The global financial crisis hit Holden and its US-based parent company, General Motors, particularly hard. There were 500 more job losses at Holden in Australia, while exports for General Motors in the US declined by 86%. In 2009 four-cylinder factories were closed, leading to another 500 job losses.
An Australian VT GTS Holden Commodore sports car, produced by Holden’s performance division. Photograph: Richard McDowell/Alamy
2010 – Government grants
The federal government gave Holden a $159m grant for the production of a local version of the Chevrolet Cruze. The South Australian government also provided $30m.
New cars are parked on the lot at the Holden manufacturing plant at Elizabeth in Adelaide in 2013. Photograph: Morne de Klerk/Getty Images
2013 – Holden announces end to Australian operations
Holden announces it will be pulling out of Australia entirely by 2017, putting 2,900 employees out of work. Months earlier Ford had announced its departure.
A Holden batch is seen on a historic vehicle during a press conference on the closure of Holden outside Old Parliament House, Canberra, in 2017. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP
2017 – An end to car manufacturing in Australia
On Friday 20 October, the final shift at Holden’s Elizabeth plant in suburban Adelaide marks the end of the company’s Australian production line. It is the last day of work for some 950 workers at the plant. Another 800 had left since the company’s 2013 announcement that it was withdrawing from Australian manufacturing. A red VFII SSV Redline Commodore sedan is the last car to roll off the lot. A few thousand former employees and Holden fans gather with the departing workers at Adelaide Oval, where Cold Chisel frontman Jimmy Barnes performs at a formal send-off. Some 700 Holden employees remain in Melbourne, including more than 300 designers, engineers and technical staff, to design cars for the Australian market.
The Holden Kingswood was one of the company’s most famous models. Photograph: David Mariuz/AAP
2019 – GM retires the Commodore
In December GM quietly announces that after 42 years of production, the famous Commodore will be dropped at the end of 2020 amid further declining sales. “The decision to retire the Commodore nameplate has not been taken lightly by those who understand and acknowledge its proud heritage,” interim Holden boss Kristian Aquilina says in a statement.
The last Holden Commodore to roll off the production line at the Holden plant in Elizabeth, Adelaide, in October 2017. Photograph: Holden/EPA
2020 – The end of Holden
On 17 February, GM announces the end of Holden in a press release. The company says it had made the decision to exit the “highly fragmented right-hand-drive market” and “retire” the Holden brand by 2021. It means about 600 of the company’s remaining 800 workers in Australia and New Zealand will be made redundant, the majority by the end of June. An emotional Aquilina tells reporters the company had “chased down every conceivable option” to prevent the closure of the brand but likens it to trying to “find a way to defy gravity”. His words do not placate the prime minister, Scott Morrison, who angrily accuses the US car giant of allowing the iconic Australian marque to “wither away” while accepting billions in taxpayer subsidies.
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