End of an era.

[Fred]

Australia's car manufacturing has come to an end.
The last ever car.....the Holden rolled off the assembly line today. Ford and Toyota have already shut up shop.
Hard to believe there will be no more cars built in this great country of ours. Just imports from now on.
It's just crazy. Who would have thought. A way of life has come to an end!
It's a sad, sad day indeed.

[68X426]

Isn't someone building an electric car down there? 

I know it's not the same but at least it would be home grown.

[Fred]

News to me. I'll have to do some investigating.
But in any case I'm a V8 (music to my ears) sort of a guy and so is the Mrs. I don't think Electric is going to cut it.

[Mopar Nut]

Very sad! 

[Fred]

Yes, bit hard to take in at present even though we knew it was coming. We've been building Holden's since 1955 (7 million cars in all).
I'm having trouble getting my head around it. A real downward slide.

[440]

It is sad as it's the end of an Australian icon. What's even more saddening is the new Commodore will be a 4 or 6 cylinder where it has traditionally been offered in a 6 or 8. With Ford dropping out of Australia at least they import the new Mustang which seems quite popular, and looks reasonably priced. New Mustangs are almost as plentiful as XR8's. At least Ford is continuing Australias fascination with V8 RWD cars.

With the Commodore esentially dead GM has to import the Camaro here to compete with the Mustang or Holden won't have anything to fill the void and will lose a huge fan base. I'm not a huge Holden fan (although for a modern car the VF is one of the best cars in my opinion) it's sad and leaves mixed emotions about losing something so embedded into Australian history and culture.

For the record the better half is a Holden fan    

[Fred]

I mentioned Holden because it was the last to go but I was referring to the car industry on the whole.
It's just hard to believe we're not building cars any more.
We have one of each.  The Mrs. has the Holden.



Our great Aussie heritage............
Football, Meat Pies, Kangaroos and Holden Cars.

[alfaitalia]

You never know...Aussie car factories might return. The Unions nearly killed our (UK) motor industry back in the 80s...well that and lack of investment and far superior cars from Germany and Japan. Now we build Land Rovers (Inc Range Rover of course), Jaguar, Toyota, Nissan's, Honda's, Rolls Royces etc etc and others. And the "British" car industry is still growing. Brexit might put pressure on it again...but we will fight back as always!

Edit: A quick Google tells me we make the following.....more than I thought. Yes I know we are small fry compared to Germany, Japan and even the US....but we were almost gone completely!

MINI – MINI, MINI Clubman and MINI Countryman, in Cowley, Oxford
Honda – Civic and CR-V in Swindon
Toyota – Auris, Auris hybrid and Avensis in Burnaston, Derbyshire
Nissan – Juke, Qashqai, Note and Leaf and Infiniti Q30 in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear
Lotus – Elise, Evora and Exige in Norfolk
Aston Martin – DB9, Vantage, Rapide, Vanquish, and DB11 in Gaydon, Warwickshire
Bentley Motors – Continental, Flying Spur and Mulsanne in Crewe, Cheshire
Rolls Royce – Ghost and Wraith in Goodwood, West Sussex
Jaguar – F-Pace and XE in Solihull, and F-type, XJ, XF and XE in Castle Bromwich, Birmingham
Land Rover – Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque in Halewood, Merseyside, and Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Land Rover Defender in Solihull, West Midlands
Vauxhall – Astra at Ellesmere Port and Vivaro van in Luton

So what I'm saying is that we came to that from nothing in about 20 years...could easily happen to you guys too. Just a shame about all the unemployed people in the mean time.

[BDF]

You never know...Aussie car factories might return. The Unions nearly killed our (UK) motor industry back in the 80s...well that and lack of investment and far superior cars from Germany and Japan. Now we build Land Rovers (Inc Range Rover of course), Jaguar, Toyota, Nissan's, Honda's, Rolls Royces etc etc and others. And the "British" car industry is still growing. Brexit might put pressure on it again...but we will fight back as always!

Edit: A quick Google tells me we make the following.....more than I thought. Yes I know we are small fry compared to Germany, Japan and even the US....but we were almost gone completely!

MINI – MINI, MINI Clubman and MINI Countryman, in Cowley, Oxford
Honda – Civic and CR-V in Swindon
Toyota – Auris, Auris hybrid and Avensis in Burnaston, Derbyshire
Nissan – Juke, Qashqai, Note and Leaf and Infiniti Q30 in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear
Lotus – Elise, Evora and Exige in Norfolk
Aston Martin – DB9, Vantage, Rapide, Vanquish, and DB11 in Gaydon, Warwickshire
Bentley Motors – Continental, Flying Spur and Mulsanne in Crewe, Cheshire
Rolls Royce – Ghost and Wraith in Goodwood, West Sussex
Jaguar – F-Pace and XE in Solihull, and F-type, XJ, XF and XE in Castle Bromwich, Birmingham
Land Rover – Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque in Halewood, Merseyside, and Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Land Rover Defender in Solihull, West Midlands
Vauxhall – Astra at Ellesmere Port and Vivaro van in Luton

So what I'm saying is that we came to that from nothing in about 20 years...could easily happen to you guys too. Just a shame about all the unemployed people in the mean time.

MORGAN, Malvern Link, Worchestershire is notably absent from this list 
One one the classiest made anywhere! 

[BDF]

Morgan is not mass produced though so sorry for the 'slappy' if inappropriately applied 

[68X426]

Fred, I'm not clear about something - Holdens are still being produced, just not on your continent.  Right?  Holdens are now all imported?

[Fred]

You never know...Aussie car factories might return. The Unions nearly killed our (UK) motor industry back in the 80s...well that and lack of investment and far superior cars from Germany and Japan. Now we build Land Rovers (Inc Range Rover of course), Jaguar, Toyota, Nissan's, Honda's, Rolls Royces etc etc and others. And the "British" car industry is still growing. Brexit might put pressure on it again...but we will fight back as always!

Edit: A quick Google tells me we make the following.....more than I thought. Yes I know we are small fry compared to Germany, Japan and even the US....but we were almost gone completely!

MINI – MINI, MINI Clubman and MINI Countryman, in Cowley, Oxford
Honda – Civic and CR-V in Swindon
Toyota – Auris, Auris hybrid and Avensis in Burnaston, Derbyshire
Nissan – Juke, Qashqai, Note and Leaf and Infiniti Q30 in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear
Lotus – Elise, Evora and Exige in Norfolk
Aston Martin – DB9, Vantage, Rapide, Vanquish, and DB11 in Gaydon, Warwickshire
Bentley Motors – Continental, Flying Spur and Mulsanne in Crewe, Cheshire
Rolls Royce – Ghost and Wraith in Goodwood, West Sussex
Jaguar – F-Pace and XE in Solihull, and F-type, XJ, XF and XE in Castle Bromwich, Birmingham
Land Rover – Discovery Sport and Range Rover Evoque in Halewood, Merseyside, and Range Rover, Range Rover Sport and Land Rover Defender in Solihull, West Midlands
Vauxhall – Astra at Ellesmere Port and Vivaro van in Luton

So what I'm saying is that we came to that from nothing in about 20 years...could easily happen to you guys too. Just a shame about all the unemployed people in the mean time.

We can only hope. Who knows what the future will hold.

[Fred]

Fred, I'm not clear about something - Holdens are still being produced, just not on your continent.  Right?  Holdens are now all imported?

Yes that's right (was just reading up on it myself the other day) We already have Opel cars (the German equivalent) over here. And then there's Vauxhall, the British version. They look the same so I guess it's just a matter of rebadging.
Fat lot of good that will do all the workers that have lost their jobs though.