Saturday, December 7, 2019

HOLDEN COMMODORE FACELIFT? IT'S THE LAST BEFORE DEATH! by John Crawford

I'm afraid the Australian motoring media are no different to their counterparts around the world. The PR departments of the car companies feed them 'biscuits' and they grab 'em, and munch away.

This week GM-Holden said the Commodore would get a facelift and denied any decision that the Insignia-based sedan and wagon were going to disappear.

Sorry guys. The facelift was pencilled in back in 2017, and will go ahead, simply because both Opel and Vauxhall will get the facelift, prior to Groupe PSA dropping the Opel-developed platform, before transitioning both nameplates over to the successor of the 2020 Peugeot 508.


Honestly, these journalists need a good talking to. It's worth pointing out that despite their many years of free Business Class trips around the world to breathlessly report on new cars, most of them do not have a scintilla of knowledge about the industry works.

They have no idea about model funding, facelifts, tooling updates or production engineering. They turn up at a press event, drive the car, collect the press kit and write the story based on the information released by the carmaker.

My good friend Paul Gover, who has many years of experience on the current crop of 'motoring writers' has the inside line of what carmakers are planning, but our youthful 'aspirants' have a lot to learn about reporting, and more importantly, digging for the 'back story'.

However, reporting the truth could see them dropped off the list for forthcoming new car launches. That would make a dent in their frequent flier balance.

JOHN CRAWFORD

1 comment:

  1. Hi John, your predictions about the future of Holden and Commodore have been spot on for some time now.

    On a different topic, referring to your past adventures on the London to Sydney marathon in a Moke and support Leyland truck, I found these photos on flickr of both on the day they arrived in Sydney

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/8793648@N06/2825962945/in/photostream/
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/8793648@N06/3562004834/in/photostream/

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