The history of Holden goes back to 1856 when an English immigrant, James Holden, founded JA Holden in South Australia as a saddlery business. His son Edward was keen on the new cars that had been launched and in 1908 started to do repair work on car seats. By 1913, they were building motorcycle sidecars – something that many future car builders did, think of Jaguar for example.
Holden Motor Body Builders Ltd was founded in 1919 to build bodies for other manufacturers chassis, starting with Ford – a later competitor. Ford were building their own plant in Victoria and needed some bodies built first. Then in 1924 came an agreement to be the exclusive body builder for General Motors in Australia, namely Chevrolet whilst also building some bodies for Dodge.
With GM taking full control in 1931 and appointing Edward Holden as Managing Director, the company was set for expansion as the world climbed out of recession. Factories were open in Victoria and New South Wales and with the Governments desire to build a “local” car, GM backed Holden’s proposal. After the Second World War, Holden was still building bodies for Chevrolet, Pontiac and Vauxhall and they won the rights to build the local car, essentially a discarded Chevrolet design. This became the 48-215 or the FX launched to the public in 1948. Chevrolet had decided that the design was too small for the American market and it was modified for Australian conditions. The car bore two siblings: the 50-2106 Coupe Utility and the Holden Business Sedan, basically a taxi version.
The FX cemented Holden’s position in Australia as one of the top manufacturers and sales were strong through the 50s with the launch of the FX successor, the FJ in 53 and that was replaced by the FC in 56. By the end of the 50s, Holden had opened a second plant in Victoria and a test centre.
The FC was replaced in 1960 by the FB, still with US based styling and it was not a good seller as Ford had just launched the Falcon in Australia, a much more modern looking car but very unreliable when run on Australian roads! So to compete, Holden launched the EK in 61, which was designed in both right and left hand drive modes, so exports could start. This was replaced by the EJ in 62 and the EH in 63 with a new engine – a 3 litre straight 6, an updated version of the Buick based one that had powered all earlier Holdens from the FX.
In 1964, Holden started to manufacture the Vauxhall Viva locally and this lead to being used as the basis for the Torana in 1967. The EH was replaced by the HD followed by the HR.
Towards the end of the 60s, Holden took a Chevrolet V8 and localised it and fitted it to its HK model and developed a series including the Kingswood, Belmont and Brougham all with different trim levels. A two door coupe was also produced – the Monaro. The HT that followed used a locally designed V8 in 4.2 and 5 litre formats.
In the early 70s, Holden were building the Torana with a 4 and 6 cylinder motor and the HQ, which became a huge winner for the company. With the HQ the Brougham was replaced by the Statesman and then in 1975 the Gemini was launched. This was built in conjunction with Isuzu and was a variant of the Opel Kadett. This arrangement also later spawned the Rodeo ute.
Three years later, Holden did it again, taking the Opel Rekord, localising it and calling it the Commodore (also an Opel name). The economy was getting tough and by the early 80s some of the manufacturing plants had closed as offshore manufacturing and badge engineering took over. The Torana was replaced by a very underpowered version of the Vauxhall Cavalier, named the Camira and this contributed to the company posting losses for the first time in its history.
Meanwhile the Commodore was going from strength to strength. The original VB had been a success and was followed by the VC and VH models. The VK came next with an update to its styling and this was followed by the VL which had a Nissan straight 6 fitted. This was due to Government regulations changing and Holden couldn't find a motor in the family to fit, however the replacement, VN used a Buick sourced 3.8 litre V6, which is still used today.
The end of the eighties saw GM pay off Holden’s debts and the company went into badge engineering in a big way with the Japanese – they rebadged a Suzuki as the Barina, a Nissan as an Astra, and a Toyota as an Apollo. Toyota then rebadged the Commodore as a Lexcen!
Through the 90s, Holden closed many of its plants including the New Zealand operation and they replaced the Japanese imports with the original cars from Europe mostly Opels – in fact Holden built the Vectra locally for sale in Asia as an Opel.
The tie up with Isuzu has been continued even though GM decided not to rebadged their vehicles in the US and so the Rodeo was replaced with the new Colorado ute, which is a Chevrolet name on an Isuzu model. It is not the same vehicle as the Chevy Colorado sold in the US!
In addition, the old Daewoo plant in Korea (now partly owned by Holden) provides the Captiva and Epica models as well. Today, Holden produces the rear drive platform that underpins many of the US brands in the GM empire and has a solid export business selling cars under the Chevrolet, Pontiac and Vauxhall banners – the new G series in the US is based on the Commodore sedan and ute and for many years, they produced all the 4 cylinder motors for the Asian members of the GM empire.
Like all other manufacturers, especially ones in the GM empire, Holden is experiencing the full ups and downs of the market. They are in a good position though because of their exports of full cars and technology to the rest of GM. Like Opel in Europe, they have had to adjust their production numbers but can withstand the economic downturn by building cars that people want to own. The Holden/Ford battle will rage on for many years!