It was not only Holden which did this.

Once upon a time most manufacturers produced just one car line.

In the 20s, 30s, 40s 50s etc., if somebody referred to their car as a Ford or a Chev or a Dodge, you knew exactly what they meant. During the 50s they added more luxury variants & more car lines. Chev for example added Biscayne, Bel-Air, Impala etc. to their big car range as well as developing the Corvette as a totally separate car line. Today they have countless car lines, so if you said I've got a Chev, it could be anything from a Spark, to a Corvette or a Suburban.

Same with Holden, the first series was simply a Holden, no problems. They then added Special, then Premier, Kingswood, Belmont, Monaro, Brougham etc. but it was all one car-line & we knew them all as Holdens. The Torana came along as a different (smaller) car line, but the things became very blurred when GM-H had Holden badges on some series Toranas, but not others. GM-H at the time were clearly not sure that all of their in-house designed cars were in fact to be called Holdens. In the late 60s, Vauxhall production had just ceased, Chevs & Pontiacs were still being built & of course they still made Bedfords. In UC for example, Sunbirds were badged Holdens, but Toranas were not. They were all marketed as Holdens however. Their workshop & parts manuals all referred to them as Holden Toranas.

The Statesman range (HQ-WB) was the exception. In an effort to push the new LWB car upmarket & make it appear to be 'above' a Holden, GM-H marketed them as 'Statesman by GM'. There were no Holden badges & all literature (as Byron has said) was labelled HQ Holden & Statesman. The one link that they had with Holden (or GM-H anyway) was their wreath & crest badge which clearly had the Holden 'Lion & Stone' emblem included, even the hubcaps say 'General Motors-Holden', any 'GM' style emblem being totally absent.

It didn't really work as planned, as everybody simply referred to them as being Holdens. After all you purchased them from a Holden dealer, not a GM dealer !!

I don't believe Holden tried this with any other series, even the later VQ onwards Statesman & Caprice.

Separating the Calais & Adventra etc. from the Commodore line is similar, but they are all still badged Holden.

Dr Terry