Commodore lost anyway
Richard Bosselman
Holden’s decision to axe Commodore might be a moot point: Its Opel donor model is likely to be replaced soon anyway. reports.
There’s a good chance that Holden would not have been able to keep the Commodore beyond 2020 even if it had wanted to. Holden’s decision to discontinue the Commodore from 2020 was a headlinemaking end to the year for the Australiabased brand.
But media reports now coming out of the United Kingdom are suggesting the Commodore as we see it will switch to a Peugeot platform anyway in 2021 – a scenario that conceivably would not have been palatable to Holden. Assuming it even had the opportunity to join in.
A report suggests that a soon-to-land facelift to see out the Commodore through to a complete showroom withdrawal within 12 months is but a last-minute tidy-up for the current shape.
There is conjecture that the Touring edition – a tall-standing, four-wheel-drive
V6 petrol – is the derivative set to take the model into a new era at that point.
British weekly AutoExpress reckons this edition will morph into something even more dramatic – a full blown crossover/SUV.
Vauxhall, which represents the Commodore as we know it as an Insignia, sees this development being crucial to maintain relevance, if not deliver a comeback of sorts.
Commodore and Insignia have suffered at a time where global interest in traditional family sedans and hatchbacks is in decline, but the soft road-tailored Touring – though also subject to modest interest in New Zealand – is nonetheless a car Opel and Vauxhall reckons could still deliver a result.
One reason is that they foresee a time when current consumer fascination for all-out sports utilities will fall away.
Anyway, as AutoExpress sees it, a new Touring that it predicts will be on sale in
2021 will be markedly different to what we have now, presenting less as a car and more as a product that would visually and technically place between a sports utility and a people carrier.
The outlet says that doesn’t necessarily mean a vehicle with seven seats, but probably points to a vehicle that is more premium, more spacious and higher-riding than the current car.
They say the key element is a switch from the current platform and engine tech, which are of course also used by the Commodore and come from previous owner General Motors (GM).
GM sold Opel and Vauxhall to PSA in
2017 and, in doing so, made Holden an indirect customer of the French multinational.
The 2021 Touring – and any other Insignia derivatives – will switch to latest systems from the PSA group. That means EMP2 platform technology already used by Citroen and Peugeot cars sold in New Zealand.
EMP2 promises lower weights and associated efficiency gains, plus the latest infotainment and driver-assistance systems.
Whether Holden could have marketed Commodores in this new guise is moot now that the brand has already pulled the plug. Holden New Zealand was approached for comment, but declined.
However, it has previously suggested that all Commodore planning and decision-making was purely in reference to the current ZB – the car it developed
Commodore and Insignia have suffered at a time where global interest in traditional family sedans and hatchbacks is in decline, but the soft road-tailored Touring – though also subject to modest interest in New Zealand – is nonetheless a car Opel and Vauxhall reckons could still deliver a result.
with Opel when that was a GM holding.
What’s also likely is that the supply deal struck for ZB Commodore, dating when Opel and Holden were both GM sister companies, includes sweetflavoured supply and costing considerations for the Australian operation.
It is challenging to imagine PSA offering the same – basically, it owes nothing to Holden.
There is no doubt that Holden has been finding the Commodore hard work; as of December 10, when the bombshell announcement of its curtailment was released, it had only registered 1584 cars for the year to date.
That was almost 200 units lower than the same period last year – itself a desultory tally, being about 50 per cent of the results the Australian-made product tended to get, though that car line was also registering declining interest and was well down on the heyday counts of 10,000-plus units a year.
Opel/Vauxhall is not alone in switching to French underpinnings. The merger between PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles also bases on more than two-thirds of their conjoined production being concentrated on just two PSA platforms, with 3 million cars per year on a compact/midsize platform and 2.6 million on a small platform.
The smaller platform will be PSA’s CMP architecture and larger cars will be on the EMP2, Automotive News Europe is reporting.
Ram pickups and larger Jeep models will continue to use FCA underpinnings.
The PSA structures are multi-energy, meaning they can accommodate petrol, diesel or electrified drivetrains, allowing a quick response to customer demand without significant new investments on production lines, and are also more modern than FCA’s equivalent platforms, the outlet says.