515 hp 253

[davegmh]

I always thought a Statesman was a Holden. I must have missed the explaination of why it isn't. If I was to ask why it isn't a Holden I feel that would start the war again so I won't be doing that.

[HK1837]

I always thought a Statesman was a Holden. I must have missed the explaination of why it isn't. If I was to ask why it isn't a Holden I feel that would start the war again so I won't be doing that.

It is an easy but long winded one. Prior to company name changes and blurring of the lines in the 80's, a Holden was what GMH built, eg FJ Holden, EH Holden etc. Alongside this the sold their locally assembled CKD Chevrolet and Pontiac cars (and whatever else they assembled). When GMH first branched out into other car lines they had the HK Holden, the HB Torana and the Impala and Parisienne offerings. Once HQ came around they had the Holden car, the Torana line and they created a separate car line to replace the Impala/ Parisienne, the Statesman. All marketing, technical and parts catalogues refer to HQ as "HQ Holden and Statesman". Other than the odd error even the ADR plates show the HQ Holden as for example "Holden HQ Sedan" where a Statesman won't show Holden it is like "Statesman HQ Sedan". It is just how they are. Torana are the same, they aren't a Holden either. Yes they are all built by a company called GENERAL MOTORS - HOLDEN'S PTY. LTD. and wear the GMH Lion badge or logo, but at the time GMH saw the Holden car as a cab chassis, Belmont, Kingswood, Monaro, Monaro GTS, Monaro GTS350, Premier or Monaro LS.

It wasn't unique to just Holden though. The V size car saw Commodore and Calais as separate car lines too in VK. In later years they even separated off Berlina, Monaro, Ute/crewman and Adventra from the Commodore lineup.

Today it is all history and they all tend to get lumped as Holdens, but the historically correct terminology which has to be used in some published documentation needs to see them separated. When you do a whole of GMH/Holden history like Dr Terry has done you have to group everything under the same banner for it to all fit together and make sense. But when targeting a specific era like say Monaro in the 60's and 70's or Sandman it is important to make the distinction that for example, the top lux level HQ Holden was a Monaro LS or Premier Sedan/Wagon, it wasn't a Statesman Deville.