Car No 29 - Holden Commodore VR. 1995

Our Commodore was not the best car we ever had...actually far from it. It was rather a dull, unexciting car, basic as they come with a 3.5 V6 engine.

I suppose it was ok but it...I dunno, it was uninspiring or something. I had a number of minor things go wrong with it, I did spend a lot of time fixing it, in the photo  on the right I'm under it!..one of the rubber rings supporting the exhaust system had broken and I had to use a section of fence wire (sorry Scenic Rim farmer) to fix it...lots of small things like that.

I didn’t have it for very long. I do think that the Holden Commodore was quite a mediocre car, especially as it followed the super popular Kingswood, it really could not compete with what was coming from Japan and elsewhere, I believe Holden might well be still around had they improved on what was being offered.

The Commodore did well for a while — the VL, VN, and VE especially — but as Holden chased global GM platforms, it became harder to make something uniquely suited to Australian conditions.

Consider this, the Kingswood series sold a total of 926'000, the VR Commodore sold just 165'000.
By the time we got to the ZB Commodore (built in Germany), it wasn’t even rear-wheel-drive or built here — and most Aussies just shrugged and bought a ute, SUV, or Hilux instead. The nail was squarely in the Holden coffin.