Holden Out For A Hero

My favourite Aussie car news site has got very excited this morning about the launch of the new Holden VF Commodore - the latest family sedan from GM's Australian Division.

Due to the geography of Australia, the family sedan is still important down there just like the Cavalier and Sierra used to be over here. This is an entirely Australian designed and built car but the question is, will it look like GM's American Chevrolet Cruze:

or GM's European Vauxhall/Opel Insignia?

Well, here's the conclusive answer:

Glad that small matter is cleared up.

The launch itself was quite interesting. Catch the video here if you want although it was mostly concerned with the impressive technological features of the new car. It was fronted by Holden's MD which may stand for Managing Director (his job) or Mike Devereaux (his name).

It is only at the very end of the launch video that you actually get to see the car but I've just shown it to you anyway.

The Americans are quite interested, AutoGuide had the story here - they are interested in the implications for a new Chevy SS.

Even before the launch, though, the Aussies were looking further ahead to the VF replacement on sale in 2017. I think they were trying to reassure Australia that there was a longer-term future for The Commodore but to quote one of the comments added below the story, "Stealing a bit of the VF's thunder. It no longer seems as important now." Oops.

Still, I wouldn't go Holden a grudge about it.

G'Day Australia

While my Blog Hits from the US have been steadily increasing, prompting my previous post, the last fortnight (that's two weeks, America) has seen Australia shoot into the lead so I figured I'd better do something for our Antipodean cousins.

So what do I know about Oz motoring?

Holdens, Utes and Bathurst.

So I checked out the Holden Website expecting to see what we would call Vauxhalls.

But it seems to mostly consist of what we would call Chevrolets albeit with a couple of nice mental monsters thrown in as well.

So, next stop on my web-based tour of Australia was the top listing when you type "Australian Car News" into Google - www.caradvice.com.au

This had the usual mix of Toyota and BMW and Porsche news that I've been reading about in the British and American car news sites. I'm not a fan of this global car industry - where has the national individuality gone?

Then I spotted this item in their editorial.

This asks, and attempts an answer, to that age old decision that I'm sure we've all had to make at some time in our lives, choosing the best new car to survive a Zombie Apocalypse.It is a brilliantly written article and they do eventually get around to cars. Apparently, the answer is a Knight XV:but that looks a little thirsty to me and I reckon that once the Zombies have taken over, the fuel infrastructure would be compromised. So you'd be better off with a VW Golf Bluemotion.

Of course, this article assumes that Zombies themselves can't drive - and I'd say that that was an unsafe assumption.




Now, Zombies being dead, would want a car for dead people, so after the Apocalypse, I'd imagine them causing havoc in vehicles like this one below.