ETW Presents Adelaide That Was: Greg Norman's 50 Years of Holden (1948-1998)

#holden #monaro #adelaide
Holden, formerly known as General Motors-Holden, is an Australian business and former automobile manufacturer, which manufactured cars in Australia before switching to imported manufactured cars under the Holden brand. It was headquartered in Port Melbourne.

The company was founded in 1856 as a saddlery manufacturer in South Australia. In 1908, it moved into the automotive field and even built the Ford Model T for a period before later becoming a subsidiary of the United States-based General Motors (GM) in 1931, when the company was renamed General Motors-Holden's Ltd. It was renamed Holden Ltd in 1998, adopting the name GM Holden Ltd in 2005.

In the past, Holden has offered badge-engineered models due to sharing arrangements with Chevrolet, Isuzu, Nissan, Opel, Suzuki, Toyota, and Vauxhall Motors. In previous years, the vehicle lineup consisted of models from GM Korea, GM Thailand, GM North America, and self-developed models like the Holden Commodore, Holden Caprice, and the Holden Ute. Holden also distributed the European Opel brand in Australia in 2012 until its Australian demise in mid-2013.

Holden briefly owned assembly plants in New Zealand during the early 1990s. The plants had belonged to General Motors from 1926 until 1990 in an earlier and quite separate operation from GM's Holden investment in Australia. From 1994 to 2017, all Australian-built Holden vehicles were manufactured in Elizabeth, South Australia, and engines were produced at the Fishermans Bend plant in Melbourne. Historically, production or assembly plants were operated in all mainland states of Australia. The consolidation of final assembly at Elizabeth was completed in 1988, but some assembly operations continued at Dandenong until 1994.

Although Holden's involvement in exports has fluctuated since the 1950s, the declining sales of large cars in Australia led the company to look to international markets to increase profitability. From 2010, Holden incurred losses due to the strong Australian dollar, and reductions of government grants and subsidies. This led to the announcement, on 11 December 2013, that Holden would cease vehicle and engine production by the end of 2017. On 20 October 2017, the last existing vehicle plant, located in Elizabeth, was closed as the production of the Holden Commodore ended. On 17 February 2020, General Motors announced that the Holden brand would be retired by 2021.

[RaviPillay-rf]

The 1964. Holden EH is still an amazing car there's a lot of them back in South Africa 🇿🇦👍

[elizabeththatwas]

For more Elizabeth (and Adelaide) That Was, please like and Subscribe. Thank you for watching - Will 🙂

[geoffmower]

Hi Will great job mate what a wonderful history of Australian motoring. Back in the 80s I had a HJ Statesman Deville, around the same time Prime minister Malcom Frazer had a white HX Statesman Caprice. My brother owned Elizabeth West Crash Repairs at the time and I had decided to put a white vinyl roof on the car and paint the car white. I bought some mag wheels that had a bolt on spoke section so they looked like chrome spoke wheels. One day I was driving past the Woman's and Children's hospital and I had stopped at the lights literally out the front. This drunk bloke saw the car and must have thought I was Malcom Frazer because he started swearing at me and threw a beer stubby at me.😂😂 Luckily he missed and the light went green so I buggered off before he had time to re load.🤣🤣😂😂 That Statesman was my most favourite Holden that I've owned a great car and I still have dreams of driving it to this day. Over the years I've been lucky enough to own my HJ Statesman 5Lt, a 1969 HT Brougham 5Lt, a HJ 4 door Monaro 4.2Lt, a HX Sandman 4.2Lt. All worth a bloody fortune now if I had only kept them.☹☹😭😭😫😫Yet another fantastic episode mate thanks for all the hard work you put into these videos and the wonderful memories.👍🏻

[Didz]

Why is the start and end cut out? The video goes further out of sync with the audio. Video is blurry and 25 frames per second leaving out one entire field. YouTube supports aspect ratios other than 16:9, adding pillar boxes is not needed.
I have uploaded the full video.

[jasetheace]

Thank you, love all your work! Thought the kid's answer to Peter Brock's question in 1998? at 1:23:59 was pretty interesting. Thanks again.

[manosmul]

Hi Will thanks again. I sent a message, but in case you missed it. Do you have anything on Adelaide Juvenuts soccer team? We lived in Elizabeth, my dad played for Elizabeth and then Juve in the treble winning years, between 1972-1975 I think? All the best.

[nevininni]

That's a great question, what will the a Holden look like in 50 years time? Well in 2048, Holden will be a long distance memory. Only 22 years from when that video aired, Holden was finished in 2020.

[honestpat]

Kids literally predicted the future towards the end 😮

[CAROLDDISCOVER-]

😊😊 had no idea that GM and holding involvement together it back so far. What we call the GTO was a Holden car and it wasn't very widely accepted car. Talkin about when the GTO was reintroduced in 2000's. Sorry about autocorrect I went I personally still like the nearest generations of GTOs.

[RaviPillay-rf]

The 1969 Holden Torana was a Vauxhall Viva GT🇿🇦

[grahamkeeton]

Holden won't make its 100th anniversary because its now dead and has been for a number of years now

[MrGoblin]

What I want to know is whether that unconscious girl in the surf got home safely after those two blokes in the HT's picked her up.

[holdenbrougham]

Holden was and always was built marginally better than Ford and quadruple quality of valiant Chrysler, Holden's engines and mechanical were no match to fords up till 1988, then Holden introduced Buick v6 to the commodore, it was a very energetic v6 too, a little harsh and had vibrations to match but it was constantly refined an smoother as years went by, Holden started to slow down before the billion dollar baby model VE even was released, then it stayed pointing down hill till it announced its death day in 2020, for us Holden workers that paid close attention to sales figures we knew it was coming to a end ten plus years before Holden fussed up and announced it was finished, , GM usa is totally to blame for Holden failing, GM told Holden we had to sell only GM made cars and GM cars are like dodge cars, , yeah garbage once you owned one never again you buy another GM car

[grahamkeeton]

Very annoying music in the video
I would have rather seen more about the actual cars than the promotional type of video that's in the video
I would have really liked to see more technical information on the various different models

[clevelandmodifiedmotor]

why the cluck is the algorithm giving me this garbage, Holden's are utter krap and a dead car brand

[GrahamH-zmuq]

Why did we get a car from the thirties where chev had hi horse powered six’s ford had v8s with air con power steering power brakes

[oochyme]

Disposable Bits of metal with wheels get over yourselves