It's a sad day for the Australian auto industry as the last Holden, and the last car of any brand to be built in the country, has rolled off of the assembly line.
The last car was a Commodore SSV Redline. That's the fastest model, with a 6.3L V8 making 408 hp. It also had Brembo brakes and a high-performance suspension.
The last Ute rolled off the line just ahead of the last car. Those two, along with the final Caprice and last wagon will be officially driven off of the production line in a ceremony Friday morning. Which is actually sometime later today.
The Commodore will be replaced by a front-drive sedan built by Opel and sharing a platform with the Chevrolet Malibu.
Holden started in 1856, as a saddlemaker in Adelaide. They moved from repairing car upholstery to building body shells, and in 1924 became the exclusive supplier for GM in Australia. The two would merge in 1931.
While Holden slowly became just another GM brand, they continued to build a few cars that remained uniquely Australian. The most notable was the Commodore. The full-size car was sold as a sedan, a wagon, and - of course - as a Ute. The Commodore came to Canada in revised form as the Pontiac G8.
Now crossovers have collapsed the big-car market, which lead to quickly dwindling sales of local-built cars. Ford already shut down their last Australian factories, that built the full-size Falcon - last year. Sales of imports in the country have overtaken domestic manufacturing, and even Toyota, Australia's biggest auto manufacturer for the last 10 years, closed up shop at the start of this month.
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