The Holden Commodore is a car built by the Holden division of General Motors (GM) in Australia. From 1989, it formed the basis of a luxury sedan range called the Holden Statesman and Caprice, and from 2001, it formed the basis of the Monaro sports coup. In
2004, Holden released both four-wheel drive and four-door coupe utility versions, called the Adventra and Crewman respectively. The Commodore is exported to several other countries, where it is often rebadged with other GM brand names.
Since the original VB Commodore of 1978, some fourteen succeeding variants have been released; of which four have been completely new models. The Commodore range saw the addition of the station wagon body style in 1979 and a utility variant in 1990. The Commodore has seen rivals from both Mitsubishi Motors, and Toyota, but has one dominant rival, the Ford Falcon. For ten years (1978-1988) the medium sized Commodore was not classified as a direct rival to the larger Ford Falcon. The introduction of the VN Commodore in 1988 saw the Commodore become a direct textbook rival to the Falcon, due to the substantial increase in size. The Commodore is also exported heavily overseas to markets such as the New Zealand and the Middle East.
Fourth Generation (2006 – present)
The Holden VE Commodore was officially presented at a media launch in Melbourne on July 16, 2006, which was viewable live on the internet. With a sales debut on August 14, 2006, it is the first Commodore to be entirely designed and engineered in Australia. All previous generations from the original VB Commodore had been based on European sourced platforms from Opel that had been enlarged and adapted for the local market. General Motors’ decision to abandon the cross-brand Zeta platform (a large-car rear-wheel-drive platform intended for use by Opel, Vauxhall, Holden and Pontiac) left Holden with the task of completing both the Zeta platform development, and developing the VE. With Opel deciding to discontinue the Opel
Omega in 2003, Holden had no choice but to go with a clean-sheet approach.
