Holden has revealed it’s now putting the finishing touches on the all-new Commodore, the first time the nameplate has been used on a car that hasn’t been locally developed and manufactured. As most of you know, the replacement to the outgoing VF was developed by Opel and is known in Europe as the Insignia Grand Sport.
It’s a significant change to the Commodore’s bloodline, and Holden doesn’t seem to have any misconceptions about this dilution having an impact on the appeal of the Commodore, especially toward the brand’s more loyal followers. The criticisms that precede its launch and following its announcement were not without shortage, with most of them being legitimate concerns.
“No longer really Australian”, “no more V8”, and “no more rear-wheel drive” made up many of the stems that prop up the lamentation.
That said, Holden is trying its darnedest to keep its customers happy by offering them as complete and as refined a product as they can, evidenced by the months of testing conducted during its local development programme that includes over 100,000km driven, with months of work going into its suspension and steering tune alone.
Rob Trubiani, Lead Dynamics Engineer for the new ZB Commodore that’s due to launch in early 2018, said: “We’ve been collaborating with our colleagues in GM Europe to make sure we’ve been able to apply all of the lessons we’ve learnt in developing Commodores over the last 30 years,”
“We’ve worked on a more direct and responsiveness steering feel to give drivers greater confidence and a more engaging experience behind the wheel. That’s in addition to changing the dampers and suspension tune on both 3.6-litre V6 and 2.0-litre turbo variants so the car feels planted and well-balanced,” he added.
“The 3.6-litre V6 is a great engine but the surprise package in the range is undoubtedly the 2.0-litre petrol with a nine-speed automatic transmission. Not only is it quicker than our current base model V6, it’s also more frugal.”
It might be front driven, but the new base Commodore’s 2.0-litre turbo-petrol does boast quite an impressive amount of punch for the price, with 191kW and 350Nm enough to propel it to 100km/h in around 7 seconds.
Of course, the overall higher performance VXR with its 3.6-litre V6 does best it for grunt and grip thanks to its standard all-wheel drive with torque vectoring, there is something to be said about the lighter (read: agile) front end that the smaller engine affords. With either engine, though, drive will be sent through a 9-speed automatic transmission before being handed to the driven wheels.
While the final specification for both the ‘vanilla’ Commodore and the VXR have a few months to go before being finalised, it’s now known that some of the highlights will include adaptive LED matrix headlights, 360-degree camera, Head Up Display, heated and ventilated front seats, Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB), Adaptive Cruise Control, Lane Departure Warning, Lane Keep Assist, Forward Collision Alert, as well as both forward and rear cross-traffic alert.
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