Holden considers Torana comeback
Glenn Butler, The Sydney Morning Herald, 18/08/06

Holden is looking to build a smaller sibling for Commodore, reports GLENN BUTLER.

The Holden Commodore's days as Australia's best-selling car could be numbered. Denny Mooney, Holden's managing director, has told Drive that Holden's next-generation family sedan could be smaller and lighter and powered by four- and six-cylinder engines.

It would be similar in size to the Torana TT36 hatch concept displayed at the Sydney motor show last year. And it may be in production by as early as 2010.
Rising fuel prices and a buyer swing towards smaller cars has put the concept of a mid-sized rear-wheel-drive sedan, first floated by Holden in early 2005, back on the agenda of General Motors.

"I've been saying for a long time that GM has to do a [BMW] 3 Series sedan, one that is affordable ... as I think about Holden's manufacturing plant and our future model line-up I feel strongly that having a car like that would be dynamite for us," Mooney says.

"I would be naive to sit here and say, 'Commodore will always be Holden's core product.' I should give you that answer but I'm telling you realistically that is a possibility that I wouldn't want to ignore."

Holden's Elizabeth manufacturing plant in South Australia builds about 140,000 Commodore sedans and derivatives each year for local sale and export. Holden employs 8300 workers directly and indirectly provides jobs for more than 20,000 across Australia.

However, Commodore sales are at a 12-year low and sales of large cars have been in decline for more than a decade - despite the past four years of record sales in the overall Australian market.

Mooney is keen to maintain Holden's manufacturing viability in the face of softening large-car demand. And complementing, or supplanting, Commodore production with a smaller rear-drive sedan is what he calls his "insurance policy".

"We'll get feedback from the market here on [the VE Commodore] and we'll start to decide what we want to do next ... It'll probably be six to eight months then we'll start cracking on ... Trying to get momentum [within GM] around a smaller performance sedan may depend on what happens [with VE].

"You could say 10 years from now it could become our core product. We could easily have a Vectra-sized [medium-sized], rear-wheel-drive performance sedan [as a Commodore replacement], or they could both be in the portfolio."

The vehicle would likely go up against the Honda Accord, Toyota Camry and Mazda6 and be powered by four- and six-cylinder engines. But not a V8. "As soon as you start trying to put a V8 into [the requirements] the car starts to look a lot like the [VE Commodore]," Mooney says. "So you do a four-cylinder and at a maximum a V6 and you get the packaging right. Remember, we're not looking for big because we've already got big but it's got to be a legitimate sedan."

The Torana is unlikely to share its underpinnings with the VE Commodore and it could be built here or by GM Daewoo in South Korea. "Build it here?" Mooney says. "That's a possibility. Depending on how the market shifts and if in five or six years we would have available capacity ... It depends on whether our plant is flat-out [building Commodores and derivatives] or not. If we have the capacity, we would want to build it, for a variety of reasons."

It may, however, be cheaper to build the car in Korea but Mooney did not speculate on that. "I want the car whether we build it or not."

The idea of a small rear-wheel-drive vehicle was floated by Holden with the Torana TT36 hatch concept early last year. Initially thought of as a stylistic forerunner of the VE Commodore, the concept's true significance quickly emerged.

"[Torana] did what I wanted it to do, which was create more energy inside of General Motors about thinking about doing a car like that," Mooney says.

It seems the Torana is back on the agenda. Mooney believes US acceptance of rear-wheel-drive - crucial if the vehicle is to get the green light - is growing.

"I see a lot of opportunity for GM with a smaller rear-wheel-drive performance sedan. I think it could be significant volume."