Holden: Our Car by Toby Hagon,
Will Hagon
Macmillan, RRP 70.00, Hardback
When Holden announced it would
stop building cars in Australia and New Zealand, a four-wheeled heartbeat
stopped. After all Holden is our car, an iconic brand whose rise echoed that of
our nation.
Holden had evolved from a saddle
business servicing a frontier nation to a motoring empire building Australasian
cars for Australasian conditions owned by a large proportion of Australasian
families. It didn't matter that Holden had been owned by America's General
Motors for 80-plus years, or that most of its cars had been imported for
decades. Holden was Australasian’s car and every one of us had a connection to
the brand, to its cars and to its place in shaping our culture.
The closure of Holden's
manufacturing headquarters in 2017 (following the closure of the New Zealand
assembly plants earlier) means the end of the Australasian motor industry as
we've known it for nearly 120 years. But it's also the end of the road for the
dreamers, designers, engineers and passionate car people who made the hundreds
of Holden models inspired by this big, tough land. For all the international
car brands on our streets today no one ever displaced Holden as the Australian
and New Zealand car.
Lavishly illustrated with
never-before-seen photos, artwork, advertising and design sketches from the
Holden archive, this book takes us deep inside the rise and fall of Holden, our
car.
Father and son duo Will and Toby
Hagon grew up on the diesel fumes of their family Holdens. Will Hagon has been
a motor racing commentator in England and Australia for more than 40 years and
is one of the longest serving, most respected motor journalists in Australia.
His son Toby is the director at aXelerate Media, and the former editor of Drive
and the motoring editor of The Age. Toby is the undisputed leading motoring
journalist in Australia.
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