Someone prepared to speak the truth

[stevanford]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=106WVY32TkE

Holden Australia has become a basket case. The situation is about to get a lot worse. If Holden’s corporate objective is to turn an Australian car manufacturing icon into a busted-****, third-rate South Korean car import operation then they are about to kick a major goal.

21st Century Holden is no longer the maker of those Holden cars you grew up lusting after. Forget the Holden Monaros and L34 Holden Toranas, etc. The last time Holden dropped any kind of emblematic icon bomb was 17 years ago. Sydney Motor Show, 1998. The covers came off a top-secret two-door Holden VT Commodore prototype that would in time become the third-generation VZ Holden Monaro - resurrected after two decades in the dirt. There was stunned silence. That was the last time Holden meant anything to Australians.

Those unprincipled bastards have since Hoovered up an average of $180 million dollars each year from the Australian taxpayer - every year, for the past 12 years. $2.2 billion. The taxpayer got nothing more than a money-for-jobs protection racket, with GM in Detroit pulling the strings on both sides of Australian politics.

For $2.2 billion dollars, Holden managed to luxuriate through the worst product planning decisions of all time. The Holden Cruze and Holden Captiva are gold medal-winning ****boxes, and the Holden Commodore's a joke. The history could be titled: How not to run a car company.

Back in 2008, I asked Mark Reuss (Holden boss at the time) about the relevance of large cars in Australia, into the future. Everyone else was downsizing and going green. He told me unequivocally that bigger was better, and would always be.

Since then, of course, Holden Commodore sales have marched off a cliff - from 51,000 that year to 30,000 last year. Forty per cent sales drop. Holden Dealers must be thrilled... Not to mention the implications for Manufacturing Australia Inc.

As it happens, mis-reading the market in this way is not an impediment to climbing the corporate ladder at GM. Mr Reuss is today the President of GM North America. I wonder how he’s going, playing the market Stradivarius over there?

And look where holden is today:

Car manufacturing in Australia is cactus: The Holden factory is on the fast track to the crematorium. The furnace doors have opened, and without further taxpayer support, there is speculation we’ll have to slide the coffin in early.

Today, Holden can’t even retain a managing director for a respectable period. All the last one did, allegedly, was get the dealer network offside in record time - and tell the press he thought Holden would overtake Toyota by 2020.

The latest Holden Chairman and MD - is a guy named Mark Bernhard. And he’s a bit too busy right now doing high-level stuff in China to kick off at Holden - for the next few months.

Holden is hardly the driving force behind car sales Australia - Holden hasn't been number one in the market for 11 years now. Total Holden sales have crashed 10 per cent so far this year. From 2010 to 2014 they crashed 20 per cent. Commodore is parked in the deep-ocean outfall. And Holden is setting new records - albeit for all the wrong reasons - namely for safety related recalls, and low deliveries of local product. Holden’s market share has plunged 26 per cent in five years? So: No hurry, Mark. See you when you get here.

Mr Bernhard is a beancounter by profession. He will be closing the factory in due course, if he lasts that long, and consequentially he'll be boning all the remaining Holden Factory workers.

Perversely, in an official statement he describes the appointment as his, quote, “dream job”.

Sounds like a nightmare to me.