It is hard to not be impressed with the vehicles that the Australians cranked out on their own terms in their own country. From an American viewpoint, there was a lot that they got right: a love affair with power, manual transmissions everywhere, the coupe-utility, and the overall design goal that the vehicle had to both be durable and worth owning in the first place. Australians might not go nuts for all of the gadgets and toys like we do over here, but if there was ever a location that would have a customer base that had no trouble telling a company if their cars were crap or not, Australia is the place. Seriously, ask Holden right now how well that rebadged Opel Insignia is selling. Go on…it’ll be fun.

Having the Australian manufacturing industry collapse on itself is one of the worst things we’ve seen in years. And it’s because the cars that we’ve seen and the few we’ve gotten to drive over the years seem to have been built by car folk for car folk. I’ve been around Valiant Chargers. I’ve seen Ford Fairmonts that aren’t based on a Fox chassis. But it’s the Holdens that did arrive to the States that sealed the deal: the Chevrolet SS sedan that I drove a few years back, the Pontiac G8 GT that a friend owns, and the two Pontiac GTOs that I…*ahem*…”test drove” when they were new cars on the lot set the bar pretty damn high.

Holden might be little more than a local badge, but the history is so much more. There’s racing heritage, there’s performance benchmarks, and there is culture involved. So let James tell you everything you could want to know about Holden. And please, someone switch his coffee out to decaf. We worry about him.