Covid-19: How lockdown lunched Commodore's final fling

It was going to be their last time together, a chance for closure forced by, well, just that. But then fate dealt another blow …

In a few days from now I was scheduled to spend a week behind the wheel of a Holden Commodore.

It was going to be a sort of Last Hurrah for two iconic motoring names – Holden and Commodore – that have been such a strong part of my professional life for many years.

Actually when the road test was first booked in January, the intention was for the subsequent article to celebrate just one of the words – Commodore. That was because at that stage Holden Australia had announced its intention to retire the model and concentrate solely on SUVs in the New Zealand and Aussie new vehicle markets.

But then in February General Motors made the shock announcement that it was moving out of production of right-hand drive vehicles around the world, which has spelt the end of that second iconic word – Holden.

Tragic though that announcement was, I figured it added extra importance to my plan to have that final drive of a Holden Commodore. I planned to take it to the Supercars at Hampton Downs as means of celebrating the 42-year career of the model.

But then in March the whole of New Zealand was shut down and everyone sent home in the big nation-wide effort to keep the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic under control. And that put paid to any chance of getting my hands on the beautiful white Commodore VXR that had been booked for me to drive.

Calamity!

Let’s hope this massive health crisis does ease before Holden New Zealand shuts its doors at year’s end, and that I do get to drive that Commodore. The brand and the nameplate deserve nothing less, because they have both been such an important part of this country’s motoring history.

The first version, the VB (below), was launched way back in 1978 as a slightly smaller and more fuel-efficient replacement of the full-sized Kingswood and Premier. Legend has it that that first model was built on an Opel rear-wheel drive platform, the bodyshell a combination of panels from the Opel Rekord and Senator models, and the car made wide enough to fit three Aussie male bums across the back seat.

The inaugural Commodore wasn’t as large as its arch-rival the Ford Falcon and it was initially thought that might affect sales. But one year later the smaller size became a sales advantage because a world energy crisis saw oil – and petrol - prices skyrocket, leaving Holden perfectly positioned to market its fuel efficiency.

All of the first-generation Commodore variants – VB, VC, VH, VK and VL – were also built in New Zealand, and so was the opening version of the second-generation model, the VN, until Kiwi assembly was halted in 1997.

The Aussies kept building the Commodore for a further 20 years, moving through two more model generations that culminated in the magnificent VF that has to rate as the best Australian car ever made. But in 2017 Holden had to shut down its assembly operations, and the following year it replaced the Aussie Commodore with an Opel from Germany that it rebadged the Commodore ZB.

And that, folks, was the Commodore I was scheduled to drive.

So what now? Well, since all motoring journalists throughout New Zealand have had their scheduled road tests cancelled until the COVID-19 crisis is over, we’re all now reduced to writing about other stuff.

Such as, the new vehicle market, and how Holden NZ is performing in it as its heads towards the time when it must close it doors for the final time.

Well actually, the brand is doing quite well.

Last month was a disaster for the kiwi new vehicle industry, with registrations down a massive 37.5 per cent on March last year. But one bright light in the midst of all the wreckage was Holden, which increased its overall market share from a depressing 7 per cent to a happier 10 per cent – which boosted the brand to second place behind Toyota.

The reason for this is obvious. Holden announced the forthcoming retirement of the brand in mid-February, and ever since it has been running an extensive retail campaign across the entire vehicle range.

Standout models in the campaign have been the Colorado ute which took a 13 per cent share of commercial market via 370 sales in March, and the Trax, Equinox and Acadia SUVs.

There’s still a selection of Holden models still en route to New Zealand too, and they’ll all be offered at special prices as Holden continues with its closing-down sale. That’s once the country’s Alert Level 4 is over, mind you, because new vehicle sales are effectively on hold until then.

Just like motoring journoes’ road test bookings. Gee, I hope it all ends sooner rather than later – because after writing this piece I want to enjoy that final drive of a Commodore more than ever...

Lion-spotting on a Chatham Island safari

The part of New Zealand relatively few Kiwis get to see offers everything you expected. And didn’t.

COMMODORE stops beside a flock of emu – what’s so weird about that?

Only that this classic Aussie bumper-to-beak moment was on a tiny dot in the Pacific, 800kms east of Christchurch, next stop South America. 

So many surprises in a place where life is lived at a 45-degree angle when the south westerlies whip with enough ferocity to render a $27 million wind farm an utter folly.

The world’s highest concentration of Harley Davidsons per capita? It’s here. (The big thrill is to blast up and down the local runway).  What’s that up in the hills? Rocket Lab’s launch monitoring station. Those Outback avians? Failed farming venture.

Now another box ticked for Chatham Island – Rekohu (misty sun) in the indigenous language - and the biggest landmass in the archipelago of the same name: A motoring media event. 

Holden’s breakthrough sports utility show-off in May of 2019 required huge planning and a big cojones spend.

Everything save drinking water is brought to this place by air, a two-hour flight, or sea, a three-day voyage. A seat on the reassuringly well-kept Air Chathams Convair 580 is equivalent to a transtasman spend. Getting the vehicles across? Locals say its $3000 a pop – one way. The attendee count was way too big for a single event, so split into three groups. Yet we still pretty much took over the hotel.

Big effort? Yes. Worth it? Totally.

This home to just 600 people best known for its fishing (which provides a third of employment and contributes half the islands’ $46m GDP) is, from my experience, alluring for its great scenery, intriguing history and fabulous people.

We met Helen, who in late life has returned to the place she grew up in, a 150-year-old cottage hand built by Lutheran missionaries who failed to convert anyone. Val, who when running the only hotel banned a patron for spilling the score of a pre-recorded rugby match ahead of screening. His daughter Toni, current publican, our guide, and total Chathams’ champion. Her pooch Pippi, who became a pet having been hired as the place’s first and only drug dog on strength of locating marijuana and methamphetamine in an aircraft then promptly fired for having straight after depositing something of her own in the cockpit.

On arrival it’s apparent a place that asks you set your clock to local time (45 minutes off NZ) also requires a mind check change as well. 

These are people who speak of the mainland as somehow being a different country, call themselves Wekas rather than Kiwis and like to say their place is like ours was 30 years ago, maybe to excuse it lacking much we take for granted.

Sealed roads, banks, a vet, radio stations, a cellphone network, Uber? Not here, mate. Necessities are minimised: One cop, one doctor, one garage, one hardware store, one pub. 

A spirit of self-sufficiency that sees a tractor run with parts from a retired Fokker Friendship and the pub looking into home-brewing would surely strike subliminal familiarity for Holden. It’s just as much a battler.

Prospect of seeing latest product raised interest, though locals were picky. Toughness and practicality rate highly here, yet another factor placed the Trailblazer above Equinox, Trax, Acadia and Commodore Calais Tourer.

Diesel is the life blood required by the power plant and most vehicles. Though petrol cars are seen, at $3.30 a litre (for 91 octane), against $1.80 for the black stuff, it’s an extravagance. The pub worker whose EA Falcon reputedly has a $200 a week addiction might like to know the Tourer cost $4 more to fully refill and blew out to a 13.2 L/100km return. 

In defence of the Commodore, I’d admit it was hard to hold back fully enjoying what was cited to be the first of its kind out here. Also, a complete exploration of the road network impressed how deceptively large this place is, 90,000 hectares of land ringing a lagoon the size of Rarotonga.

Holden’s sole elevated, all-wheel-drive V6 wagon is a great gravel express, but requires additional ground clearance and an off-road mode to achieve access-all-areas ability. A nudge bar would be good too. Not to fend off the famously feral pigs. The cows and sheep are almost as belligerent.

But it got us along beaches and across bumpy paddocks, even up the well-named Horrible Hill, an awesome viewing spot, and out to Maunganui stone cottage and, at the other end of the island, a remnant stand of kopi (karaka) trees.

Both legacies to incredible hardship and unwavering hope. Built as a mission station, the isolated cottage is home of Helen Bint, who lives happily without running water or electricity and who made international news discovering fossilised sponges when beach fossicking.

The trees bear dendroglyphs, carved designs up to 300 years old and under threat. These were rendered by Moriori, hunter-gatherers who eked existence in a place too cold to grow traditional Polynesian vegetables. Their undoing was determined allegiance to something we all aspire to: A peaceful life. They were all but wiped out in 1835; a tragedy that haunts this place.

At time of visiting, it seemed obvious Commodore was fighting for survival. Now we know not only it is a goner, but so too Holden itself, the latter falling vitim to General Motor’s out-of-the-blue decision to curtail every right-hand drive programme save Corvette.

Holden NZ subsequently shipped its vehicles back to the mainland and I guess all have since been sold off. 

In a way, it seemed a pity that Commodore couldn’t have remained in its last new territory. This place would be a good spot in which to finish its days, for simple reason it would have been in the company of other last-of-line icons unlikely to ever leave.

Among wrecks littering Port Hutt is the Thomas Currell, the final example of a fleet of historic WWII minesweepers, whose final role was as cray boom freezer ship. Down the road, a Sunderland flying boat which first flew here in 1942 and became a permanent resident in 1959, a write-off having hit a rock during take-off.

The shed in which you can visit to view the fuselage, once home to chooks and now under restoration, looked plenty big enough for a landmark Holden.