Filed under: Car Buying, Ford, Holden, Australia
Holden and Ford trading punches before Falcon arrives
Holden and Ford have been fighting the battle of Commodore vs. Falcon for many years, and with the recent announcement of the new Falcon range, the war has heated up. Holden's very competent Holden line has been given quite a jolt in anticipation of the Falcon's release, with many offerings trumping Ford's recently introduced Falcon models.
The Commodore will now feature standard side curtain airbags across the model range, as opposed to only two of eight Falcon models having the safety tech standard. The Commodore's side air bags will also protect both first and second row passengers, as opposed to only the front row in the Falcon. Holden also held the price of the upcoming Commodore wagon to within $1,000 of the sedan's price, where before it was an extra $3,000, and air conditioning is now standard on all models. Pricing for the eight Falcon models has yet to be announced, so Ford still has a chance to retaliate. It appears that the battle rages on for RWD superiority in the land of OZ, and if we're lucky Ford will bring the Falcon Stateside to battle the Pontiac G8 on our turf.
[Source: Drive]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Taylor 9:40AM (3/10/2008)
Go Holden.
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Fabri91 9:48AM (3/10/2008)
I absolutely love the frod's styling: go Ford!
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Fabri91 9:48AM (3/10/2008)
Correction: it's "ford's styling".
FThorn 10:03AM (3/10/2008)
That blue rendition is the ugliest thing I've seen outside of hotwheels.
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psarhjinian 10:09AM (3/10/2008)
Amazing, what a little competition will do. The sad part is that, despite Australia being such a small market and the return on investment not particularly large, Ford and GM actually try very hard there. Europe's very similar, only there's far more competition (and buyers) there.
In North America they had--for years--decided to benchmark each other's offerings and shoot just barely above them. And Toyota et al just shot right past them while they paid no attention to anyone other than themselves.
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TriShield 11:01AM (3/10/2008)
Holden and Ford AU pretty much operate independently of their motherships by Australians for Australia. They are a bit more in touch with their market than GM and Ford are at home.
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Franz 11:59AM (3/10/2008)
Battling with GM/Holden in AU is all well and good, but Ford needs to take the war Stateside. GM brought the G8, now it's Ford's turn to bring over a Falcon variant to square off against it.
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rkolk 12:27PM (3/10/2008)
Bring it home to the states!
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Luis 1:16PM (3/10/2008)
The more they compete, the better model we'll get here in NA later. Keeep at it!
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Judy Zik 1:27PM (3/10/2008)
It kills me to see the effort Ford and GM/Holden put into the Australian market of 20 million people and yet they pretty much ignore the Canadian market of 33 million (nearly the size of the state of California) by feeding us the same product as the US market despite major differences in car buying preferences.
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psarhjinian 1:51PM (3/10/2008)
Ford (and GM) of Canada are pretty much marketing divisions of their American counterparts. They have no identity or authority. By contrast, Ford/GM's EMEA and South American wings are autonomous divisions that do get a say in product development.
pupl 2:06AM (3/11/2008)
This is a really immature comment, but i have to say it, Australia is slowly losing it's Aussie icons. Vegemite, Arnott's, Commodore and how about the Falcon? For it to remain Aus/NZ exclusive, AU has their national pride intact. You have to live or atleast visit Australia to experience or understand what i mean.
Most people would know a Mustang as an American muscle icon. But will people remember the Falcon as Aussie muscle? Or even the G8 as an essentially Aussie muscle too?
I'm done venting.
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Andrew L 12:38PM (3/12/2008)
Bring the Falcon stateside as a Mercury and the Mondeo stateside as a Ford
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Skybreak 6:39PM (3/10/2008)
Although the new Falcon was designed from the outset for both LHD and RHD, Ford in the the US decided not to pursue a LHD version, so it is unlikely you'll be seeing Falcons stateside anytime soon.
Chrysler do make a RHD of the 300C which we get here in Oz (thanks very much), but they can't be bothered making RHD versions of the Charger or Challener, both of which would be nice. Likewise a RHD Mustang would be enormously popular. Grrrrr.
Surely it can't be that difficult for Australia and US to plan and build cars for RHD and LHD.
It's not the Europeans and Japanesse can't.......
Damian 12:58AM (3/11/2008)
Skybreak, the fact was that Ford Australia tried to make the new Falcon LHD as well as RHD but couldn't. They were given $600,000,000 by the Australian government to develop a LHD model and they couldn't figure out how to do it effectively.
A RHD Mustang was available in the early 2000s, they sold very poorly and so the idea was scrapped. I believe the Victorian police department had (or still has) a police Mustang.
Aside from the 300C we do get some Chrysler products here. Jeeps have been sold here for ages and recently we've been getting Dodge Calibers, Dodge Nitros and Dodge Avengers imported over here in RHD. We also got RHD versions of the second generation Dodge Viper back in 2002 or so. There were only a few Vipers and they all got sold very quickly.