(engine revving)
- [Man] So there I was,
traveling in a fried out combi on a hippie trail;
head full of zombie.
I met a strange lady,
she made me nervous,
but took me in and made me some breakfast.
As I made my way to the front door,
I noticed a funny looking car
poking it out of the garage.
It looked familiar,
but different at the same time.
As her muscle-bound male companion
handed me a Vegemite sandwich,
I asked him,
"Hey! What's the deal with that red car in the garage?"
They said,
(Australian accent) "You know it comes
from a land down under?"
And I was like, "Cool."
It's the company that gave Aus a car to call its own,
giving birth to some of the most
serious down under icons along the way.
You Aussies asked for it,
we're gonna give it to ya.
This is everything you need to know
to get up to speed on Holden!
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!
Oi, oi, oi!
You like my new hair?
(beeps)
(grandiose choral music)
Speaking of Holden,
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that you already have,
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Then it's shipped to your door every three months;
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Keeps is super affordable;
only ten to thirty five dollars a month.
I'm gonna you in on a little secret:
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Enough said daddio!
To receive your first month of treatment for free,
go to keeps.com/uptospeed,
that's k, e, e, p, s,
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Slash, up to speed.
Now, back to some Australian V8 fun!
Holden is an Australian institution,
bearing the standard for speed demons
all over the land of the southern cross.
The Commodore,
the Monaro,
the Torana,
all... (pauses)
(incorrect number dial tone)
are all names that any self-respecting,
roo-riding Aussie knows.
They hold the same prestige as the Camaro,
GTO and Nova do over here in the States.
As a matter of fact,
some of their cars actually made it here in disguise,
and we will talk about those later.
- Let's get ready
(gear shift sound)
(engine revving)
The Holden company opened its doors in 1856,
making saddles for horses.
After about fifty years of hand crafting saddles
for some beautiful, majestic, buff-ass steeds,
Holden decided to shift gears,
getting into the Auto body game.
What they would do is build bodies for
imported GM's and Ford's,
and stick a little Holden badge on the finished car.
They weren't completely Aussie-built machines,
but it was a start.
In 1931, my Dad was born,
and GM bought Holden,
merging it with GM Australia.
Out of the marriage came General Motors - Holdens Ltd.
The company was stoked to get building
some authentic Aussie automobiles,
but would have to wait until after
the end of WW2.
During the war, Holden Manager Lawrence Hartnett
was plucking some shrimp off the barbie,
enjoying a can of Cooper's,
when he got an idea.
- (Australian accent) Hey, I've got an idea!
How about we build our own car for our own country.
Built by Australians.
That would be awesome, ay mate?
- [Guy] But Lawrence was alone.
With no one but a single Kookaburra
keeping him company.
The bird just laughed and laughed,
and flew off into the sunset.
- Cuckoo! Kookaburra!
- [Guy] Even so, Lawrence knew it was a sign.
With every flap of that magnificent bird's wings,
his lungs filled with exuberant fervor.
He hurried up and ended World War Two,
and rushed home to get started on his car.
That's what happened, look it up.
[Guy] While Holden's re-skinned GM's were good,
they weren't tailored to Australia's
unique road conditions and lifestyle.
- [Camera Operator] Been here nearly half a day now,
and just no traffic at all.
(goat bleats)
- He wanted a car that would
split the difference between
small British town cars and
beefy American Sedans.
Holden sent a team over to Detroit
to work with Robocop and GM on
building this new car.
What came back was the Holden 48-215.
And in 1948, it was the first car
manufactured in Australia.
Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!
Oi, oi, oi!
[Guy] Farmers wanted a Holden,
but didn't wanna ruin the back seat
after throwing a few sheep back there.
They love their sheep!
They wanted something with a bed or,
as they call it down there,
a tray.
Which makes more sense,
and is way less creepy if you think about it.
Why do I need a bed in my car?
Holden got crackin' on a more practical 48-215
or Coupe Utility.
In 1958, they took the car, put a freaking bed on it
and unleashed it on the Outback.
With both Holden and their rivals at Ford
producing car-truck things, Australians would now, forever,
have a ute to call their own.
About 10 years later, in the early 60's
the country had a growing obsession
with a little thing called racing.
Australia's biggest race was a 500 kilometer run
around the Mount Panorama circuit in Bathurst.
It was a big deal because every car on the track
had to be stock, meaning the cars you saw winning
were the ones you could buy.
It was just like my dad used to say,
win on Sunday, sell James' bike for poker money on Monday.
Join car racing is basically how NASCAR here is in the US.
Winning at Bathurst is like winning at Daytona or Talladega.
In the beginning the race was dominated
by small, nimble little Brits
like the Ford Cortina, Mini Cooper, and Warwick Davis.
This was until Ford developed their Falcon GT
powered by a scrappy little V8.
It dominated the long stretches of the track
and got Holden thinking,
(Australian accent) "hmm, maybe we should do that mate."
"alright."
Holden designer Peter Nankervis started drawing up
a new car on the back of his little trapper keeper.
The looks were undeniably GM but distinctly Australian.
Peter's design made its debut in 1968
named for its southern region in New South Wales.
Monaro, and what's a sweet car without a sweet theme song?
Nothing! (Monaro theme song plays)
Holden's objective with the Monaro- Monaro? Monaro.
Was to make sporty driving available to every Australian.
Fun cars from other countries came with high price tags
but since the Monaro was built in Australia,
it was more affordable.
So the Monaro- Monaro- would be powered
by 327s imported from America.
The engine made a respectable 250 buff kangaroos
and took the Monaro to the next level.
It was time to take it to the track
where the car was first dreamed up.
October 6th, 1968, a day that would live in the hearts
of Aussie auto racing devotees forever.
Both the Monaro and the Falcon GT were entered in Class D,
a precursor to today's V8 supercar.
After a hard-fought battle of over 500 kilometers,
3 Holdens stood on the podium.
A fact made even more impressive by the fact
that there's only 3 spots on a podium.
You got your 1st, you got your 2nd, you got your 3rd,
Holden, Holden, Holden.
(engine revving)
In the 1970's vans were taking over the US
but nothing says hey man I like to party
like a van with shag carpet, a mattress,
and an airbrushed freakin' wizard on the side of it.
Things weren't much different in Australia,
all the kids were buying vans of their own
to party in and Holden took notice.
Holden's head of design Leo Pruneau had an idea,
(Australian accent) "hey mate, how 'bout we go
put 'em on arrow front of one of our Belmont panel vans.
I bet the kids would really like that aye? "Sure."
But the modified Belmonts flew off the dealership lots.
Holden knew they had something.
Across the tailgate read one of the greatest names
in automotive history: Sandman.
(riffing)
Sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight,
in your van!
The Sandman was in production for only 6 years
but left a huge mark in the hearts of hard-partying Aussies
all over the country.
A few of you, may have been conceived in one.
(engine revving)
Racing had become an integral part
of Holden's brand identity but unlike the Monaro
this little guy was a little guy.
The Torana was a compact car great
for economical commuting and city living.
That was, until Holden took a few of them
and outfitted them for Bathurst domination.
It was a pretty rad combination that racked up
back to back Bathurst wins, but the L34 had a few big flaws.
The rear drum blakes- (computer error sound)
the rear drum brakes were flimsy and prone to overheating,
the transmissions and rear diff kinda sucked too.
With Ford's Falcon XBGT quickly catching up it was clear
that the Torana had to be faster.
The L34 was now called the A9X,
Holden completely redesigned the rear suspension
and replaced those crappy drum brakes
with some state of the art things called disks.
The 5-liter V8 made 146 kilowatts
in 406 Newton meters of torque.
For you Americans that don't know the Queen's maths,
that's 220 buff horses in 300 torques.
Hashtag queens maths
And you can't talk about the A9X without mentioning
perhaps the coolest part, these real,
functional, bolt on fender flares,
so big tires can fit underneath.
This is why I love Holden and you should love Holden.
They put a freakin' rocket bunny kit on a 4-door sedan.
(engine revving)
Unfortunately, the Torana did not continue
the Holden Bathurst win streak
but it did win the Australian coin car championship
in 1978 and '79.
The A9X finally won at Bathurst by a whole 6 laps in 1979
which helped launch the career
of legendary Aussie race man, Peter Brock.
- (race commentator) Whoa, he's almost in trouble that time
I don't think I've seen Peter Brock so far out of line for-
- Fast forward a few years, it's 1986
John Farnham's, "You're the Voice"
is ruling the Australian airwaves,
Crocodile Dundee is absolutely destroying at the box office
and Holden is refreshing their Commodore midsize car.
Throughout its life so far the Commo was available
with Holden designed inline 6's or small V8's
but that- wooh- all that was about to change.
Starting in January of '86, every car made in Australia
had to run 91 octane fuel.
This was a problem, because Holden's engines
couldn't run on 91 octane fuel.
Ugh! Blimey!
It would be too expensive to have their old engines
and it wasn't like they could borrow an engine
from another country that already ran on 91
I mean, that would be crazy.
- Uh actually they could.- Shh!
So that's exactly what they did.
Holden called up Niss-unn as they say in Australia
and they were like, (Australian accent) "aye mate,
our cars need to run on 91 octane but our engines can't
so can we borrow one of yours until we figure it out?"
and Nissan was like "(gibberish and giggling)"
(Australian accent) "What?"
(Japanese accent) "Uh, yeah you can."
Holden purchased Arby 30 Inline 6 engines from Nissan,
the same engine that powered the R31 Skyline.
Yuh, lighting! (lightning bolt crash)
Just 6 months after launching the RB30,
The Commodore was available- yeah!- with a turbo,
double lightning! (2 lightning bolt crashes)
Which pushed power up to 151 appropriate kilowatts
or 201 horsepowers for you jerks on the other colonies.
(fart noise)
The turbo charge Commodore could haul butt
with a top speed of 124 miles.
(engine revving)
The Australian police bought a ton of 'em
and they used them as highway interceptors.
That gets my pants tight, freakin' Mad Max, yeah sign me up!
These police models were known as BT1's
and since these things are Nissan-powered
people loved tuning the absolute crap out of them
and taking them to the strip. (incoherent cheering)
In 1987, Holden teamed up with a British racing outpick,
Tom Wilkenshaw Racing to develop a new
homologation race car for Group A racing.
The new partnership would operate under the name
HSV or Holden Special Vehicles.
How does he do that?
Just spinning words on his finger out of nowhere.
Their first project was a Commodore
with an outrageous body kit, the Commodore SS Group A SV
was designed in a wind tunnel believe it or not
and produces 25 percent less drag
than the previous Commodore Group A car.
The plastic body kit featured a fat front air dam,
heat extracting hood, slotted side skirts,
and a huge rear spoiler.
Seriously, this is a bigger spoiler
than Jon Snow dying again. (upset exclamation)
The Group A SV was powered by Holden's new
fuel injected 5 liter V8 and featured a few little tweaks.
Those mods made the 5 liter good for 240 horse-powers.
That's good enough for 0 to 60 in 6 and a half seconds
and a victory at the 1990 Bathurst 1000
only 5 years-okay it's all starting to add up-
only 5 years before Post Malone was born.
(trippy music)
Fast-forward a few years to the mid-90's.
GM's director of design for Asia-Pacific
and Native Aussie, Michael Simcoe was at home
with a drawing of a 3rd-gen VX Commodore.
With a piece of vellum paper, he outlined the 4-door sedan
and filled in the rest with a 2-door design.
Satisfed with his work, he brought it in to Holden
and people started to see it and they liked it.
They were like, (Australian accent) "Michael,
we have to build this thing mate."
And he was like, "Really?" And they were like, "Yeah!"
So they did! And they brought the concept car
to the 1998 Australian International Auto Show
under the name, Holden Coupe.
Journalists and the public got to see the car
and they liked it too!
Holden couldn't let a good thing go,
so they brought the Coupe into production in 2001
with the official name of Monaro.
The legend, was back.
You could get it with either a supercharged V6
or a Gen 3 5.7 Liter GM V8 which is sicker.
In 2004 the Monaro got updated styling
and the Corvette-sourced LS1.
Now this car might look familiar to all you Yanks
because you might know it as a Pontiac GTO.
Apparently GM didn't even have plans
to bring the Monaro to the US because duh
we never get anything cool but the story goes
that GM North America chairman, Bob Lutz
read a glowing review of the Monaro
and decided to make it happen.
(deep voice) "Johnson, why am I just learning
that we have a sweet 2-door with a V8 and that it's great?"
"Um, Uh, I'm sorry sir." "You get that car,
and you bring it stateside now, we'll call it a Pontiac."
(manic laughter) "Yes sir, right away sir.
Right away Mr.Lutz."
While the GTO was available for 3 years,
Holden stopped producing the Monaro in 2006
so we stopped getting it too, cuz it wasn't getting produced
but it wouldn't be the last Holden that we would get
in the States the 2008 Pontiac G8 is a rebadged VE Commodore
and the 2014 Chevy SS is a Commodore as well.
The VF Commodore went into production in 2014.
HSV produced 3 different models, first was the club sport,
it got a 425 horse-powers LS3 under the hood,
tweaked body work, and a HSV battery.
Above that is the GTS which kicks it- bam!- up a notch.
GTS rocks a 577 horse-power LSA, to date the HSV GTS
is the most powerful car ever produced
by an Australian auto maker.
Lightning, lightning, lightning, lightning!
But, it wasn't the most Australian.
What could be more Aussie than a 6-speed sedan
with nearly 600 horse-power you ask?
How about a freaking ute?
(engine revving)
The HSV Maloo GTS put the fun back in functional.
Without all that weight over the rear tires,
the Maloo is a bonafide burnout machine
and probably the coolest thing ever devised by human minds
besides Limp Biscuit's seminal album, Significat Other.
Unfortunately, The VF ended production in 2017
marking the end for Commodores built in Australia.
In fact, that was the end
of any car being built in Australia.
Holden began its life by importing GM bodies
and putting their name on 'em, and it looks like
that's what they're gonna do again for a while.
Thank you guys so much for watching Up to Speed,
if you didn't watch this, I wouldn't be allowed to make it.
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