GM closing all Oshawa, Ontario operations

[Bricktop]

Yes.



Sold in their millions. Hugely popular. Sold a lot in Australia too. But they simply were not up to the level of the Japanese cars and were discontinued in the 70's.



https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.historics.co.uk%2Fmedia%2F1055659%2F1968_ford_cortina_1600_super_1.jpg%3Fanchor%3Dcenter%26mode%3Dcrop%26width%3D1000&f=1">

[Anonymous]

Yes.



Sold in their millions. Hugely popular. Sold a lot in Australia too. But they simply were not up to the level of the Japanese cars and were discontinued in the 70's.



https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.historics.co.uk%2Fmedia%2F1055659%2F1968_ford_cortina_1600_super_1.jpg%3Fanchor%3Dcenter%26mode%3Dcrop%26width%3D1000&f=1">

Do Japanese brands dominate the car market in Australia?

[Bricktop]

Yes.



Top sellers are Mazda and Toyota, with Hyundai in there as well.



Toyota 111,854

Mazda 59,344

Hyundai 49,943

Mitsu 43,871

Ford 36,443

Holden 32,614

Kia 31,348

Nissan 29,727

VW 29,469

Honda 29,301

Subaru 26,305

Mercedes 21,810

Isuzu Ute 13,390

BMW 12,909

Audi 10,624



SUV's outsell sedans, and if you include commercial vehicles (trucks) then sedans make up only about half the sales, and it's falling rapidly.

[Anonymous]

Yes.



Top sellers are Mazda and Toyota, with Hyundai in there as well.



Toyota 111,854

Mazda 59,344

Hyundai 49,943

Mitsu 43,871

Ford 36,443

Holden 32,614

Kia 31,348

Nissan 29,727

VW 29,469

Honda 29,301

Subaru 26,305

Mercedes 21,810

Isuzu Ute 13,390

BMW 12,909

Audi 10,624



SUV's outsell sedans, and if you include commercial vehicles (trucks) then sedans make up only about half the sales, and it's falling rapidly.

Australia likes SUV'S and trucks too.



Holden is GM right?

[Chuck Bronson]

Holden is GM right?

Yes, although they don't actually build anything anymore.



They are strictly importers now (from Opel in Germany, and from GM North American plants)

[Berry Sweet]

Yes.



Sold in their millions. Hugely popular. Sold a lot in Australia too. But they simply were not up to the level of the Japanese cars and were discontinued in the 70's.



https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.historics.co.uk%2Fmedia%2F1055659%2F1968_ford_cortina_1600_super_1.jpg%3Fanchor%3Dcenter%26mode%3Dcrop%26width%3D1000&f=1">

I'd like to have a car like that.  All the cars on the road today are big and bulky...ugly...they all look the same.

[Anonymous]

What's the worst car everyone has owned? Ford Taurus or tortoise for me.

The most unreliable vehicle we've owned was a Dodge truck my husband owned when we were first married..



He was always working on it.

[Anonymous]

What's the worst car everyone has owned? Ford Taurus or tortoise for me.

1975 Ford Granada 2 door. First wheels I ever owned, worst wheels I ever owned.

[Bricktop]

Holden is GM right?

Yes. And in times past, they sold more cars than all the others combined, as GM promoted the Holden as an Australia designed and built car...which in the main it was. However, in the late 70's, in order to reduce costs globally, GM started on their "World Car" concept that shared components and design from all of it's subsidiaries.



So the Holden became an Australianised Opel. The Opel was designed as a 2 litre European car...Holden Australian dropped bigger 6 and 8 cylinder engines in it for the Australian market.



However, Holden's major focus was on sedans and derivatives (station wagons, utilities, sports sedans) built on the identical platform, as was Ford's with their "Falcon" range.



Somewhere along the line, someone forgot to tell GM and Ford that consumers were losing interest in big engined sedans, and that smaller more fuel efficient cars were taking over the market at one end, and SUV's at the other.



But they had no interest in investing R&D in these areas, dominated by Japanese cars. Australian's would keep buying the local product, right? Even if the quality gap was widening by a substantial margin. First Ford started importing from their European factories, then Holden from Europe and SE Asia. But their cars were and are garbage. Poorly designed, cheaply built and most often a parts bin combination of engines from one model with gearboxes from another, and drive shaft from somewhere else.



This was not unique. Volkswagen builds Skodas that way. But GM and Ford are not VW. Or Toyota. Or Honda.



GM's market here is collapsing. The Holden brand will not survive, and we will more likely see other GM subsidiaries take over, or GM dealerships will offer a variety of makes. Already, Holden dealerships are disappearing, and the worst is yet to come as their brand value continues to freefall.

[Anonymous]

Skoda sold 1.21 million cars worldwide in 2017. :2r4ml1j_th:

[Bricktop]

We had a Ford dealership nearby...but as Ford's market share collapsed, it decided to convert to another brand.



Skoda.



The only thing that moves through the yard now is tumbleweed.

[Anonymous]

We had a Ford dealership nearby...but as Ford's market share collapsed, it decided to convert to another brand.



Skoda.



The only thing that moves through the yard now is tumbleweed.

Ford was making Skodas?

[Bricktop]

No.



They couldn't sell Ford's any more. So they switched to Skoda, which are made by Volkswagen.

[Anonymous]

No.



They couldn't sell Ford's any more. So they switched to Skoda, which are made by Volkswagen.

Ford is the Australian wholesaler for Skoda?

[Bricktop]

No. The dealers simply close their doors as a Ford dealership, and open the next day as a Skoda dealership. I don't know how it works in practice, regarding residual stock and so on, but the fact is that Ford and GM as both a brand and as a product are on the nose here, where once they were kings.



Their abandonment of manufacturing in Australia in lieu of cheap Asian labour did not help their cause either. But they don't make vehicles that resonate with the Australian consumer as they did when they designed and built Australian cars.



Ford and GM quality is questionable when compared to Japanese and European marques, and now even challenged by Korea. For companies that have been around far longer than most, this is quite perplexing. You'd think that they would have developed the same level of manufacturing and brand management as Japan and Germany.



But the reality is they build cars for the American consumer, and buy and rebrand other cars for the rest of the world.



This will only hasten their demise.