It wasn’t till 1971 that GM-H in Australia went to extreme measures to radically design and manufacture what has turned out to be Australia’s most popular car ever built. Australia’s car buying public embraced this new HQ design concept from 1971 to 1974 and its’ amazing popularity over 3 years of production, has turned it into a real Australian “icon”.
The release of the HQ Holden became a determining point in establishing the GM-H brand in Australia as a dominant force in motor vehicle manufacturing, not just locally, but globally with 41,181 HQ’s exported overseas during 1973.
The huge model range included the Belmont Sedan, Belmont Station Wagon, Belmont Panel Van, Belmont Utility, Kingswood Sedan, Kingswood Station Wagon, Kingswood Ute, SS Sedan, Premier Sedan, Premier Station Wagon, Holden Chassis and Cab, Monaro Coupe, Monaro GTS Coupe, Monaro GTS 350 Coupe, Monaro LS Coupe, Monaro GTS Sedan, Statesman Sedan,and Statesman DeVille Sedan.
In fact, the full HQ range supplied Australia’s new car buyers with a choice like they never had before. This was the standard set for future generations of new Holden models to follow.
1973 was the 25th anniversary of GM-H in Australia and it was befitting that Holden should celebrate with it’s most popular motor vehicle ever produced in Australia with special “silver anniversary” badged models released during 1973.
In total this amazing HQ model vehicle sold 485,650 units to make it one of the first permanent Classic Holden Cars, because of its’ reliability, functionality and the various body style configurations and engine combinations. No other model Holden has attained the volume sales that the HQ reached during it’s 3 years of production.
The HQ Holden remains supreme as the number 1 best selling Holden of all time, followed by the VT Holden Commodore model of 1998, with total production figures of 303,895. Competitive car manufacturers in Australia consider this amazing HQ sales volume, for a single model Australian car, as the benchmark of successful car design and engineering in Australia.
The HQ Holden model car became an iconic Holden vehicle because of it’s sales based on a “bigger” choice in the HQ range and the new design and engineering concepts newly introduced to Australian car manufacturing, laying the foundation for other Holden models to be based on in the future.
The public excitement over the release of the HQ Holden was compared to the same pride and joy that was celebrated when Australia’s first built car the 1948 FX was launched. The media were hungry for “news” on this model Holden, as national media played a major role in it’s release and popularity.
