05GTO

It's official: Holden has announced that it will dump the Monaro. The car-maker has said that production of the Monaro at its Elizabeth assembly plant in South Australia will stop at the end of this year.
Final cars made will be a limited-edition specification, to be called CV8-Z.

Holden spokesman Jason Laird would not comment on whether the cessation of Monaro production also meant the end of the line for the left-hand drive Pontiac GTO that's exported to the USA. "It's up to Pontiac to make any announcement regarding the future of the GTO," he said.

Holden's American-born boss, Denny Mooney, has revealed in recent interviews that he's keen to reduce manufacturing complexity that the Elizabeth assembly plant has to cope with as it produces Commodore (in both right- and left-hand drive), Statesman/Caprice (again, in both right- and left-hand drive), Adventra, Crewman (in rear- and all-wheel-drive), Ute, One-Tonner (in RWD and AWD), as well as the Monaro (in right- and left-hand drive, and with two different V8 engines).

The death of Monaro could be just the first step of a manufacturing rationalisation program as Holden gets ready for the all-new VE Commodore and WM Statesman/Caprice models, which will be launched in July, August or maybe even September next year.

In a press release, Denny Mooney said Holden "... continued to investigate options for a next generation coupe with other divisions of General Motors".

"Everyone at Holden is certainly committed to delivering a new generation Monaro in the future but there is still a lot of work to make that happen," he said. "We're looking at a number of options to ensure Holden continues to set the standard when it comes to performance coupes in the future.

"Monaro means too much to Holden to not have another Monaro at some time in the future."

The end-of-the-road CV8-Z Monaro gets a new orange-based metallic colour called Fusion and factory-fitted Holden By Design sunroof, black bonnet scoop accents, machined 18-inch five-spoke alloys -- with one spoke embossed with a CV8-Z logo -- modified rear lights and gun metal chrome CV8-Z rear badge.

Inside, Fusion and Phantom cars come with Fusion-coloured instrument and highlighted leather trim. Three other combinations will be offered: Quicksilver, Turismo and Devil Yellow with anthracite leather trim.

The CV8-Z carries the same $60,490 recommended retail price as the standard VZ Monaro CV8 and goes on sale early next month. Planned production is 1200 cars only.

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Randy

 

05GTO

THE mighty Monaro, the most charismatic car in Holden showrooms, is doomed.

It is the victim of a tumultuous shake-up of Holden's whole Commodore family to make way for new-age models including all-wheel drives.

Holden's production plant in Adelaide is being restructured, building up to the arrival of the all-new VE model midway through next year.

Monaro sales have been slowing, which points to a coming plateau in demand in Australia and also for the export model of the car, the Pontiac GTO, which was developed at Fishermans Bend for sales in the US.

As yet there is no successor to the Monaro in the VE line-up, although Holden is working on several plans, including a heavyweight sports car similar to the Chevrolet Corvette.

Holden is painting the decision to end production of the Monaro later this year as a win for the company, even though it will be a big loss for fans.

"This is still the best-selling sports car in the country," spokesman Jason Laird said. "We wanted to go out with a bang while it was still on top.

"It was a question of us choosing the timing. Champions retire on top."

The Monaro was a 1960s marque, born again in the late 1990s. There was a deafening roar from customers when Holden displayed a Monaro Coupe at the Sydney Motor Show in 1990, and the car was fast-tracked into showrooms.

Only 11,000 have been sold since then in Australia, with overseas sales to Britain and the US taking the total beyond 40,000.

The numbers do not make long-term sense when Holden is struggling with back orders on more popular models, including its all-wheel-drive Adventra and V8-powered Commodore SS.

Holden plans to farewell the Monaro with a limited edition car called the CV8-Z due on sale next month. But it may not be the end for Monaro.

"Everyone at Holden is certainly committed to delivering a new-generation Monaro in the future, but there is still a lot of work to make that happen," said Denny Mooney, chairman of GM Holden.

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Randy

b_a_betterperson

Oh, crap.

PWR_SHIFT

"Oh, crap" is right!!!
Does that mean that GM is doing a 180 and there won't be an '06 Goat?

Xcommuter

Maybe this sets the stage to move GTO production to the states ...

diverdan

The '06 is already happening and will be the Monaro. GM has said there will be an '07 GTO and will be on a new platform (presumably in the states) so this sort makes sense.

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2004 Pulse Red GTO M6 - New Era CAI, TB Bypass, CAGS, Custom Split Exhaust, SLP Sway Bar & Bushings, BMR Strut Brace, HID, Sans Spoiler, Sirius

2002 Quicksilver Z06 - A Few Upgrades

ftlfirefighter

You said it BA! I just got off the phone with the boys down under at Harrop and they are not Amused to say the least by this! Imagine if Chevy axed the Corvette in one fell swoop... It's hard to say if there'll be an 06 or not now. I'm starting to think this wassn't such a bad investiment after all! We all know how American cars depreciate by half the minute you drive them off the lot so maybe this can work in our favor.

Groucho

That would be disasterous.

What a pile that would be.

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10 BEERS

Did anybody read the orange fusion color as a JUDGE package? Sounds like it could be a special edition in the works for '06 models.

b_a_betterperson

Here's the sugar coated poop from holden.com:

http://www.holden.com.au/www-holden/...CategoryId=all

I think if you were to scratch below the surface of this, you'd find that Holden's management is pretty P.O.'d at GMNA's idiotic decision to scrap the Zeta platform in favor of building more stupid SUVs. That gut punched all their replacements for the Monaro, Ute and Commodore. I'm sure there are conference calls going on saying "come on, you Aussies will love selling Holden-badged Monte Carlo and Impala SSess." Uh-huh.

I'm think I'm gonna puke. You know, this goes a long way to explain why the car hasn't been included in the employee discount program, why the cars haven't been moving from the docks to the trains, etc. This announcement may very well give GMNA an excuse to ditch the 2006 GTO -- to focus resources on the launch of the Solstice and sell the built up inventory of 2005s.

Bottom line? This car is expensive to make and difficult to sell. The money simply isn't there -- especially with gas heading for $3 a gallon.