The global parts bin - what is a Holden anyway?

[mpower]

Thought this might be an interesting discussion, it wasn't until a while back that I first realised that GM-H and Vauxhaul shared so many commonalities.

From their acquisition dates 1925 for Vauxhaul (bit later for Opel) and 1931 for Holden right through to sharing so many similar parts and things.

I don't know how far back everything went but at least as far as the HD/HR era. Even naming conventions are similar with Vauxhaul having models like HA and HB and we get HD and HR. It's almost like a parallel universe or alternate timeline.

This was pretty fun to watch actually.

I've jumped online and pulled up a few pics of different Vauxhauls and anyone that knows Holden's will immediately recognise bits and pieces all over the cars.

Then of course there's the famous and now well known cross pollination of jingles

and in later years the exporting of every Commodore (and the Monaro's) to the UK as a Vauxhaul.

Feel free to find and share more as this is obviously only the tip of the iceberg.

Vauxhaul and Ford even shared a tit for tat rivalry not unlike Holden vs Ford

Ford vs Vauxhall: what you need to know about each manufacturer

The UK car marketplace has been the scene of a long and bloody conflict between Ford and Vauxhall. The two car manufacturing behemoths have jointly dominated the top 10 of the sales charts on and off for at least the past 35 years, and the quality of the latest models proves that the scrap for...

haynes.com

 

[Skylarking]

Yeah, lots of cross pollination resulting in variations of the same theme but it's not a bad thing as our commodores were based on the Opels of the day.

There were some notable cars out of such cross pollination. I always liked the Lotus Carlton Omega being twin turbo six with 281kw 560Nm worth of horses. Pity they never brought it down under.

One interesting thing with the Lotus Carlton was that it had Opel Senator rear suspension which was similar to our commodores. However, the Carlton had rear camber rods to fix the inner tyre wear plaguing our cars. As a cost cutting measure, it seems these camber rods were dropped on our commodores but later adopted by HSV.

It wasn't a one way thing as the Lotus Carlton adopted our commodore's V8 LSD and teh Corvettes manual gearbox.. A real parts bin special it was

Nothing wrong with parts bin engineering at its best... no need to reinvent the wheel, just repackage the wheel

 

[shane_3800]

The Torana is a Vauxhall.

 

[Fu Manchu]

We had a Vauxhall Viva. Was slow as and once broke down on a railway crossing.

 

[VS 5.0]

We had a Vauxhall Viva. Was slow as and once broke down on a railway crossing.

I hope you left it there.

 

[Wayno73]

The J car (aka Camira) is an interesting one. Do a google search on Cadillac Cimarron to see how far badge engineering can go.

 

[afstruct]

Sorry I might be totally bias but some Holdens are , !! Yes based on vauxhall but engineered for Australia and it's conditions.
And some total cool special models released for raceing .

Also have never seen a rip snorting V8 ( even more when modded) based Opel based Torana or Commodore .
Also how many Opel based cars are now worth upwards of $100k or more

 

[Fu Manchu]

The J car (aka Camira) is an interesting one. Do a google search on Cadillac Cimarron to see how far badge engineering can go.

I did but all that came up was a ZB.

 

[102SSRS]

Your Holden Monaro built on the Sigma platform was exported to the USA from 2004-2006 and rebadged as a Pontiac GTO

2004 was the LS1 with 350hp and a choice of A4 or M6 trans the 05/06 had the LS2 rated at 400hp

A little known side fact is that the Camaro used in the first Transformers movie was really a converted GTO/Monaro.

The VE Commodore in 2008-09 was imported as the Pontic G8 in Canada and the USA with a base model V6 with 260hp and A4 only

A GT model with a 360hp V8 and a choice of A4 or M6 and a GXP model with the LS3 rated at 410hp and A4 or M6 trans.

The Aussie Holden Zeta platform from the VE would later be shortened and narrowed into the Zeta 2 platform and become the 5th Gen Camaro built in Oshawa Ontario Canada about an hour and a half from where I live.

Also imported to the USA was the rebadged Commodore as the Chevy Police Pursuit Vehicle called the Caprice and a high performance version simply branded as the Chevrolet SS the last model was in 2017.

 

[mpower]

The VE Commodore in 2008-09 was imported as the Pontic G8 in Canada and the USA with a base model V6 with 260hp and A4 only

and they featured one in Captain America The Winter Soldier in the highway chase scene.

Monaro's were also used by the air force as featured on Top Gear.

But this is all the late and very obvious stuff, i thought the earlier stuff was more interesting.