Oz cars for the USA

[Ron]

The following is an extract from one of our local news services.

February 08, 2007 12:22pm
Article from: AAPFont size: + -
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HOLDEN has announced a huge export deal that will see its new South Australian-made Commodores re-badged as Pontiacs and sold into the US car market.

Holden chairman Denny Mooney said the move was vital to secure the future of the car maker's Australian manufacturing operations.

"We need this kind of volume to keep our plant running at capacity, and frankly if your plant is not running at capacity then financially you're going to have difficulties,'' Mr Mooney said today.

"This is more security than it is anything else right now ... we need to fully utilise what we have.''

The cars, which will wear the Pontiac G8 badge, will go into production at Holden's plant in Elizabeth, South Australia, late this year.

Mr Mooney would not comment on the value of the export deal with parent company General Motors, or the number of vehicles that would be exported.

He said the US export deal had the potential to exceed the market for Australian-made Commodores in the Middle East, where they are sold as Chevrolets.

"We already sell 30,000 plus into the Middle East ... this has the potential to be our biggest export market,'' Mr Mooney said.

He also said talks were underway to export Australian-made Holden utes.

"They like their trucks in the US,'' Mr Mooney said.

[JeffinNZ]

Oz cars with US engines (Buick as I understand it) being exported to the US. I like it.

NICE.

[wills]

Building them offshore with cheap foreign labor.

[grumpy one]

Jeff, they have not used those Buick engines in about three years now. There are several GM plants building the new V6 engine, one of which happens to be at Holden.

Wills, it's mostly about where you sell most of the cars of that type. The two biggest selling cars in Australia are both large rear-wheel-drive sedans, and the future G8 is one of those two. The volume opportunity for that car in the US is smaller than it is in Australia (where the car was designed incidentally, but that doesn't have much to do with where it gets built). So, you can't afford two plants for the total volume required, and most of the cars need to end up in Australia. The labour cost isn't the big issue, and is vastly complicated anyway because of GM's surplus labour in the US and the nature of its union contract there. This is just a matter of "where do you build a few units of a car that has hardly anything in common with any of the other cars you build?" Such projects are a royal pain for people trying to set up GM's high volume US plants to run efficiently, to be able to compete with the Japanese and Korean plants.

[shooter575]

Well hell,importing from OZ where the bloks make a fair living is better than letting the chit-comms import. Dosent look like we are gonna make any cars or trucks in Detroit any more.
Ya,ya I know all the reasons why... Just hard to see my state become a third world economy. We do have one export that is expanding.Our workers.
BTW,you aussies got to move the steering wheel :razz:

[grumpy one]

BTW,you aussies got to move the steering wheel :razz:

Somebody will probably remember. Hard to fix that on warranty.

[gregg]

Well hell,importing from OZ where the bloks make a fair living is better than letting the chit-comms import. .
BTW,you aussies got to move the steering wheel :razz:
Yup Yup

[Buckshot]

................I always check to see where it was made if I buy something and will buy American 90% of the time, given a choice. The other day at Lowes I saw they had Irwin 24 tooth carbide tipped circ saw blades on sale at $7.50 apiece. Guess where they were made? New Zealand! Said made to Irwins spec in New Zealand. I bought them without a twinge. Way better then buying them "Made to Irwins Spec in China".

.................Buckshot

[TCLouis]

I see Toyota small diesels in Australia, and yet none are available in the US. Sure seems to me that there would be a market here if the trucks were offered for sale.

[grumpy one]

I see Toyota small diesels in Australia, and yet none are available in the US. Sure seems to me that there would be a market here if the trucks were offered for sale.

I think it is a difference in consumer preferences. Diesel light trucks are mostly sold to farmers (we won't speculate on why they are diesels, since we know the answer) and farm trucks here are mostly small Japanese one-tonners. Similar trucks are sold in the cities here, but are mostly gasoline-fuelled. As I understand it US farm trucks are predominantly the traditional US pickups, with big architecture and small payloads. Hence what we buy you guys wouldn't, and what you buy we wouldn't. So, Toyota probably figures they couldn't sell enough small diesels per dealer to make it workable to run it through their distribution system.

[wills]

Toyota just opened a Tundra plant.
http://www.toyota.com/about/news/manufacturing/2006/11/17-1-TMMTX.html
http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/jan2007/bw20070123_471968.htm?chan=autos_autos+index+page_ news

[Hackleback]

I see Toyota small diesels in Australia, and yet none are available in the US. Sure seems to me that there would be a market here if the trucks were offered for sale.

I would buy one of these in a NY minute.

[Four Fingers of Death]

Where I am from in Bathurst, most of the young bloods drive a table top 4wd truck/ute, with a diesel 4cyl and have dog cages on the back. They are often jacked up hign and wear big wheels/tyres. When I take my wife to hospital for treatment, I stay at Newcastle, which is a city on the coast, 2wds predominate amongst the young guys who don't drive little noisy cars. they are often lowered and the rear of the truck (? they are not really trucks, if you put a slab of beer inthe back, the thing would be overloaded) virtually scrapes on the road it is so low and the wheels are those silly low profile things which look like billy cart wheels. Feel like giveing them a clip under the ear, telling them to get a rifle and go out and shoot something, do soomething useful :D

[NVcurmudgeon]

I drive a Dodge 1/2 ton 4WD pickup. It is the ideal vehicle for me and where I live. The original tires were French Michelins, two of which went flat in the first ten miles of gravel road, and were replaced by $1000 worth of B.F. Goodrich tires. After the first year, I was horrified to learn that Chrysler/Dodge is owned by Daimler-Benz of Germany and that B.F.G. is owned by Michelin of France. It seems that the U.S. automotive industry is moving toward being wholly owned by backstabbing nominal allies like France and Germany. Before the flames start, my last name is German, and my only documented Revolutionary War ancestor was a French immigrant, but I don't have a lot of use for today's French and German governments or businesses. Last I heard (yesterday) was that there are 1400 Australians serving in Iraq. So bring in your Holden utes, mates! When it comes new truck time again, I would prefer to spend my money with our friends.

[scrapcan]

I too would like to see the Oz and Kiwi vehicles come in. And especially if you could get a small diesel. It is hard to see our economy drop to pieces in that we in the USA can't seem to want to build things for ourselves.

Bring on the Utes, would like to have one. It also might make people better drivers if we had to learn to drive from the otherside!

[wills]

I wondered what they did with the El Camino

http://www.elcaminostore.com/Cars/cust-car-6.jpg

they sent it to Australia, changed its name, and put in a 6 cylinder.

http://www.dieselstation.com/wallpapers/Holden-Ute/Holden-Ute-010.jpg

[bruce drake]

Sweet Camino!

[grumpy one]

I don't think it matters, but the flow of intellectual property went in the other direction. That kind of vehicle was introduced in Australia by Ford in 1935. GM's Australian branch (Holden) made them continuously from 1952 onward, using whatever was the current model of their sedan as the base vehicle. Those utes were sent to the US for management approval prior to each model change, and eventually somebody in Detroit decided that they were worth a shot in the US. There was no rocket science involved - it was a traditional product in Australia, made by American-based and -owned Australian companies. So, the El Camino (and Ford Ranchero) were US versions of Australian utes. It wasn't that the GM and Ford folks couldn't have thought of it anyway - mostly they knew that the sales opportunity wasn't going to be all that big or last all that long. Utes have continued to be made in Australia, by Ford, though Holden dropped out of that market for a few years then returned.

It happens to be easy for GM to pick up the Holden ute as a low volume import, if they want to, because the new model was designed for US sale in the first place. The question all along was whether it would be a good business proposition. As I say, no rocket science - those guys know what they are doing, they just want to do things that make money, not lose money.