Quote Originally Posted by HK1837 View Post
It wasn't just Chevs, we had GM/GMH dealers selling Pontiac and Buick too as well as Truckpower dealers selling Isuzu, Bedford and Chevrolet. GMH assembled most of these here too.

The Holden car is essentially gone in any case. It died as a passenger car with HZ in 1980 and with WB commercials in 1985. I know it is far more complicated that what you can type in a few words, but essentially in the 90's the Company formally restructured/changed and became HOLDEN rather than GMH, and everything sold by HOLDEN was a Holden rather than GMH selling the Statesman, Holden, Torana, Sunbird etc. The "push" (for want of a better word) to call everything a Holden appears to start in early Commodores and Sunbird as in advertising these were called Holden Commodore and Holden Sunbird and sold alongside the Holden range, Torana range and the Statesman range. So to me a proper "Holden" car is a 48/215 through to a HZ (excluding Statesman and commercials) and a "Holden" commercial is the utes, vans and cab-chassis. Others are GMH Torana, GMH Gemini and GMH Statesman. Others will/may disagree but that is how I see it.

Some newer stuff does bear the Holden name in full, like V2 Holden Monaro and in essence this is a Holden as it isn't a Holden Commodore.
We'll have agree to disagree on that point Byron.

I think that the name Holden as a car model badge, as opposed to a marque, effectively started to disappear in the late 60s.

In 1948 a Holden was just that, a Holden. GM-H was the manufacturer, but the car was a Holden. Then we got the Holden Special & then the Holden Premier, these were just trim upgrades, but all these 3 were still Holdens. In 1967 we got the Torana which was not a Holden, it was a separate smaller model-line, never the less called the Holden Torana. It is at this point the maker was now being referred to as either Holden as well as GM-H.

Things got more confusing in 1968 & then again in 1971, with the intro of the Belmont, Kingswood, Monaro, Brougham & then the Statesman. Some of these were simply trim variations on the basic (full-sized) Holden, while others were new bodystyles, with the Statesman losing the badge name Holden altogether. While the dropping of the Holden badge off the Statesman clouds the issue completely, all of these cars were made by Holden but really only the Belmont, Kingswood, Premier range could really be known as Holden cars. The Brougham & Monaro was where the line also started to get blurred.

What about the Gemini, it was built by Holden (the company), but I don't think anyone would consider it a 'real' Holden, even though it was badged the Holden Gemini. The name Holden, by this time was clearly the marque. The Commodore completed this scenario.

Even though the company wasn't officially restructured from General Motors Holden to the Holden Sales Company & the Holden Engine Company until the mid-80s, Holden was a marque name well before that time. BTW the company name is currently GM Holden.

I think Vauxhall in the UK is good comparison. The last true Vauxhall was made in the late 70s, since then they have all been rebadged Opels (as well as the occasional Holden). Their cars were sold as Vauxhalls in the UK & Opels elsewhere in Europe. They have done similar marketing surveys to find that they well sell many more cars badged as Vauxhalls than the very same cars fitted with Opel badges.

Dr Terry