HOLDEN - Everything You Need to Know | Up to Speed

2 doors. Satisfied with his work, he brought it to Holden and people started seeing it and liking it. They said, (Australian accent) "Michael, we've got to build this, mate." And he said, "Really?" And they said, "Yes!" That's how they did it! And they took the concept car to the 1998 Australian International Motor Show under the name Holden Coupe. Journalists and the public got to see the car and they liked it too! Holden couldn't pass up anything good, so it put the Coupe into production in 2001 under the official name Monaro. The legend had returned. You could get it with a supercharged V6 or the sicker GM 5.7-liter Gen 3 V8.

In 2004, the Monaro got updated styling and the Corvette-sourced LS1. Now, this car may look familiar to all you Yankees because you may

know

it as a Pontiac GTO. Apparently GM didn't even have plans to bring the Monaro to the US because we never got anything good, but the story goes that GM North America president Bob Lutz read a glowing review of the Monaro and decided to make it happen. (deep voice) "Johnson, why did I just find out we have a nice 2-door model with a V8 and it's fantastic?" "Um, uh, sorry sir." "You get that car and you bring it to America now, we'll call it Pontiac." (maniacal laughter) "Yes sir, right now sir.

Right now Mr. Lutz." While the GTO was available for 3 years, Holden stopped making it. We produced the Monaro in 2006, so we stopped purchasing that as well, because it wasn't being produced, but it wouldn't be the last Holden we would get in the United 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, the first was the club sports car, it had a 425 horsepower LS3 under the hood, a modified body and an HSV battery. Above it is the GTS that takes it, bam!, to a higher level.

The GTS has a 577-horsepower LSA; To date, the HSV GTS is the most powerful car ever produced by an Australian car manufacturer. Lightning, lightning, lightning, lightning! But it wasn't the most Australian. What could be more Australian than a 6-

speed

sedan with almost 600 horsepower? How about a damn ute? (engine revving) The HSV Maloo GTS brought fun back to functionality. Without all that weight on the rear tires, the Maloo is an absolute burnout machine and probably the coolest thing ever devised by the human mind, aside from Limp Biscuit's seminal album, Significat Other. Unfortunately, the VF ended production in 2017, marking the end of Australian-built Commodores.

In fact, that was the end of any car built in Australia. Holden started life importing GM bodies and putting its name on them, and it looks like that's what they're going to be doing again for a while. Thank you all so much for watching Up to Speed. If they didn't see this, they wouldn't allow me to do it. Make sure you don't miss anything, hit the subscribe button, hit the like button, if you want to see more donut content, here are two other videos that I highly recommend. Follow me on Instagram @JAMESPUMPHREY, follow Donut @DONUTMEDIA, I love you.