Public loves

Press, 30 November 1978, Page 19

Public loves

General Motors-Holden has done it at last. The giant Australian corporation’s SIIOM bid to produce a car to rival Europe’s best mass-produced models has paid off. The new European-look Holden Commodore has set sales records in Australia in its first two weeks on the market. Late last week GM-H announced that 2200 Commodores were sold in the first two weeks, smashing the old 1500-car record achieved by the Mitsubishi Sigma in the two weeks after its launching last year.

GM-H breathed a huge sigh of relief when the public rushed the dealers off their feet for the new Commodores, and the corporation is also confident

that the car will revive GM-H’s flagging exports. Mr Chuck Chapman, managing-director of the company, said this week that 7000 Commodores will be sent abroad this year — mainly to New Zealand, Hong Kong, the West Indies and Indonesia —and that the success of the new car has allowed the company to take on 1300 workers, with another 650 jobs opening up by Easter next year. GMH’s workforce will be swelled to 22,000 by the additional 1950 workers. The Commodore is based on the Opel Rekord, but it took 558 engineers and 350 others involved with marketing, manufacturing, finance, materials, quality-control and other details four years to make it an Australian reality. The project was the cos-