A Holden Rumour

[toad]

There is a rumour circulating that Holden is about to be sold off to TATA Group. They are a huge Indian conglomerate into steel, manufacturung, trucks, buses, cars, telecommunications among other things.

Has anybody else heard this?

[Peter Minahan]

Haven't heard it before, but it makes more sense than some may think. The General is bleeding (as are a lot of car makers) worldwide and rationalisation is the name of the game. We can all moan about the good old days but they're not going to come back. Maybe the next Commodore will be the last Oz engineered GM machine. By the way, Toad, what did happen with your Torana in Africa. Was it just a fuel supply issue (IE: wrong place at wrong time??) I accept full responsibility to any readers for including this in the wrong thread - so sue me.

[toad]

Originally posted by Peter Minahan
Haven't heard it before, but it makes more sense than some may think. The General is bleeding (as are a lot of car makers) worldwide and rationalisation is the name of the game. We can all moan about the good old days but they're not going to come back. Maybe the next Commodore will be the last Oz engineered GM machine. By the way, Toad, what did happen with your Torana in Africa. Was it just a fuel supply issue (IE: wrong place at wrong time??) I accept full responsibility to any readers for including this in the wrong thread - so sue me.

The Torana was fine in Africa. I had no trouble with the fuel (which is a blend of regular unleaded and kerosene) giving about 85 octane. We finished the first day with stage times in the top10. But on day two my wife (who was navigating) fell ill and we ended up in hospital in Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania). Once she recovered we tried to chase the rally but our rented service van blew up. We rented it in Kenya and it stopped in Tanzania. So we were trapped. There is no way to complete this event without your spares or service crew.

So unfortunately we had to retire and decided to go on animal safari instead.

[Chev_350]

where did you hear this?

I dont like the idea of it but if GM keeps loosing money at the current rate, its best to get off now rather than go down with the ship and it'll be too late.

I suprised GM hasn't sold off some of its other brands yet, than again Holden is doing stronger than some of their US brands so maybe they would get more money out of a Holden sale and try a stabilise the company's looses?....I dont know

Hopefully if some one does buy Holden, they dont change too much

[TBVX05]

Tough times ahead for Holden, you can blame the parent company for that! Hopefully they can survive as they are, Id hate to think of Holden being owned by Indians! :mad: :(

[GSXR1]

Originally posted by TBVX05
Id hate to think of Holden being owned by Indians! With a comment like that you didn't happen to be at Cronulla the other weekend...:confused: :mad:

[adhowie]

Originally posted by GSXR1
With a comment like that you didn't happen to be at Cronulla the other weekend...:confused: :mad:

Id like to think people on the site are above things like that. i live near Cronulla and there is more to last weekend than last sundays events, Thats the press for you!

Id like to think it was ment to mean Holden stays as Austrailan and Iconic as it can and not lost like vegemite and all those other austrailan thinks we grew up with.

[Chev_350]

Originally posted by adhowie
Id like to think it was ment to mean Holden stays as Austrailan and Iconic as it can and not lost like vegemite and all those other austrailan thinks we grew up with.

but like Vegemite, Holden is owned buy an American multi-national giant company and always has been owned by GM since they made full cars

[TBVX05]

Originally posted by GSXR1
With a comment like that you didn't happen to be at Cronulla the other weekend... :mad:


Yeah Im sure if you liked Holdens you would want a foreign country to buy out your favourite car! :rolleyes:

[lukey73]

There is a little snippit in the new Wheels magazine about Fishermens bend taking more design work of GM worldwide.

Maybe Holden are going to design some new TATA utes/cars for the indian market. This would seem a logical option as TATA wouldnt have access to a World class design and development facility. Holden could infact start to do more contract work outside of the GM family given our expertise and quick work. This would helpout the balance sheet of the parent company.

Luke

[toad]

Originally posted by lukey73
There is a little snippit in the new Wheels magazine about Fishermens bend taking more design work of GM worldwide.

Maybe Holden are going to design some new TATA utes/cars for the indian market. This would seem a logical option as TATA wouldnt have access to a World class design and development facility. Holden could infact start to do more contract work outside of the GM family given our expertise and quick work. This would helpout the balance sheet of the parent company.

Luke

This is an interesting aspect. GM is set up in India building Daewoo's (badged as Chevrolets) and Subaru Foresters (also badged as Cheverolets) and has made a huge push into this market. An alignment with Tata there would make sense as Tata is the largest car maker in India but as you point out their cars are rather old and basic and they are loosing share rapidly to the Koreans and Japanese. This could be a win/win.

I am not sure how this would impact Holden though.

Notably TATA is also a huge IT company that does a lot of outsourcing. GM is presently going through an evaluation to outsource all their IT.

[VXfan]

Originally posted by GSXR1
With a comment like that you didn't happen to be at Cronulla the other weekend.
So wanting Australian companies to be owned by Australians is racist now is it?oh please,give me strength:rolleyes:
And yes,I know GM is american but I reckon I know TBVX05 wasn't trying to be racist.

[BATHURSTFAN]

Yeah Im sure if you liked Holdens you would want a foreign country to buy out your favourite car!

what he said...

but like Vegemite, Holden is owned buy an American multi-national giant company and always has been owned by GM since they made full cars

I've never seen Holden as a true Australian manufacturer. It's American owned no different than Ford.

It's all publicity.

[camshaft]

GMH are just Holden on,so does this mean they are going to say TA-TA to Australia.

[jager]

This would seem a logical option as TATA wouldnt have access to a World class design and development facility.

TATA have for the last 20 years had a close technical partnership with Mercedes on commercial trucks and vans (TATA builds older Mercedes designs under licence). This has also spread to involvement in passenger cars.

[toecutter]

SPIEGEL magazine has a new International Edition out at the moment called Globalization " The New World".
It has a 10 page section about GM in America and Opel in Europe and is a very interesting read. If I was a Holden worker, some big changes are coming your way.

[GSXR1]

Originally posted by VXfan
And yes,I know GM is american but I reckon I know TBVX05 wasn't trying to be racist. I actually agree with you on that point, I think I understand where he was coming from with that comment, and I don't think he meant any offence by it, but I do believe it could have been worded a hell of a lot better, especially in the current climate.

[jager]

Here's an interesting twist.

Indian F1 driver Narain Karthikeyan has lost his seat at Jordan for next year. Karthikeyan's major sponsor is .........TATA.

If TATA get control of Holden, why not get Karthikeyan to replace Skaife as the lead driver and owner at HRT.

[VXfan]

Originally posted by GSXR1
I actually agree with you on that point, I think I understand where he was coming from with that comment, and I don't think he meant any offence by it, but I do believe it could have been worded a hell of a lot better, especially in the current climate.
Agreed,it was not worded well at all.

[toad]

probably because he is getting paid a million or so to test drive for Williams

[Acj428]

If TATA get control of Holden, why not get Karthikeyan to replace Skaife as the lead driver and owner at HRT.

That's funny, because the last time both these drivers race, they were crashing threw the in field.....;) :)

[Leigh]

Originally posted by Chev_350
but like Vegemite, Holden is owned buy an American multi-national giant company and always has been owned by GM since they made full cars
The difference being that Vegemite was once Australian owned, Holden (the car manufacturer) have never been Australian owned...

[Leigh]

Originally posted by lukey73
There is a little snippit in the new Wheels magazine about Fishermens bend taking more design work of GM worldwide.

Holden have the third strongest design team in the GM empire, and will have the third largest once they employ the 70 odd people they are after...the only two GM design teams that are larger are Detroit and Opel...

Knowing this, I found it amusing to read statements on here recently about Holden not designing vehicles, but copying them.:rolleyes: GM wouldn't be putting more resources into a company who are only good with tracing paper...:eek:

I'll see what I can dig up regarding Tata...

Cheers

[lukey73]

Originally posted by lcfp2297
Holden have the third strongest design team in the GM empire, and will have the third largest once they employ the 70 odd people they are after...the only two GM design teams that are larger are Detroit and Opel...

Knowing this, I found it amusing to read statements on here recently about Holden not designing vehicles, but copying them.:rolleyes: GM wouldn't be putting more resources into a company who are only good with tracing paper...:eek:

I'll see what I can dig up regarding Tata...

Cheers

The New VE is totally AUS designed and not a copy of modified from anything else in the GM world. It could be the start of bigger things to come from the Holden design team, they have access to a huge test facility at Lang Lang so it would make sence for them to increase there workload and make best use of those facilities.

If TATA have been using old Mercedes designs then it may be time to update the chassis but keep using the Merc engine ( if that is what they have im not sure ! ) similar to SSangyong. They recently updated there chassis but still use Mercedes drive train.

With alot of the design team being pilfered to other regions it has shown that AUS has the talent to build world class products and this is finally going to show through.

Luke

[TBVX05]

Originally posted by jager
Here's an interesting twist.

Indian F1 driver Narain Karthikeyan has lost his seat at Jordan for next year. Karthikeyan's major sponsor is .........TATA.

If TATA get control of Holden, why not get Karthikeyan to replace Skaife as the lead driver and owner at HRT.


He can go to Ford instead! :rolleyes:

I hope TATA goes tata and we never here of it again! :rolleyes:

[Chev_350]

Originally posted by toad
probably because he (Narain Karthikeyan) is getting paid a million or so to test drive for Williams

no I think he is paying for his gig, since Williams need every penny they can get their hands on now they are paying for their engines