Who or What, determine's how long a particular model vehicle stay's on sale for? For example, the HQ was the largest selling Holden model..(I believe this to be true)..of that era. Are the model run's determined by the vehicle sale's, or is it a person within the company?
Cheers.
"Proud To Be An Old Fart".
HQ was delayed so the HT facelift (HG) was released. WA was supposed to happen but was cancelled and this was part of why HQ was updated in 1973 and hung around for longer than intended.
I dont understand, was the question about what sales figures say, or how many the company claim were produced... I dont see a difference, but is there a conflicting figures issue? (I have no knowledge of this, just inerested).Originally Posted by HK1837
Anyway, they made a heap of HQ's, (we all know that), I forget the official figure, but I'd like to be reminded. Any chance, just following this thread that you can inform what it was... and, is there any reason to question it?
Also, has Holden ever acheived higher sales for any other model over the same time period between HQ release and it got revised to HJ ?
But then again, has any recent model lasted that long before update , I dont know, if it's easy info I am interested to know. VB/C?
The question is how and what determents a model change or how long a production model lasts.
By numbers there were:
256,959 EH Models made between 1963 and 1965
178,927 HD Models made between 1965 and 1966
252,352 HR Models made between 1966 and 1968
199,039 HK Models made between 1968 and 1969
183,402 HT Models made between 1969 and 1970
155,787 HG Models made between 1970 and 1971
485,650 HQ Models made between 1971 and 1974
176,202 HJ Models made between 1974 and 1976
110,669 HX Models made between 1976 and 1977
154,155 HZ Models made between 1977 and 1980
60,231 WB Models made between 1980 and 1985
EH, HR and HQ were all popular by the looks. HZ was a low seller for the three years it ran interestingly enough. Everyone loves to knock HX but they sold 40000 less and only ran for a year, HZ ran for over three years.
Actually you can see a decimate change from the 60's to 70's. Model run increased dramatically.
It is interesting to break down the figures into sales per month, to see which was in fact the most popular Holden series. As you can see gross sales are irrelevant if the car was on sale for a longer or shorter period of time.
I did some figures recently on average sales per month for FE to HZ. To achieve these numbers, I simply divided the total sales for that model series by the number of months it was on sale. Some of the numbers are surprising but there are several anomalies.
FE - 7,388
FC - 9,586
FB - 10,921
EK - 10,014
EJ - 11,908
EH - 14,275
HD - 12,780
HR - 11,737
HK - 12,440
HT - 13,100
HG - 12,984
HQ - 12,452
HJ - 8,390
HX - 7,377
HZ - 5,315
These figures are distorted slightly by the fact that in some model series the utes & vans ran into the next model by a few months, most notably EK into EJ (5 months), EH into HD (5 months), HR into HK (1 month) & HG into HQ (4 months). Also I counted months, rounded off to the closest whole number. If I counted weeks it would be more accurate.
What I find most interesting is that the supposedly unpopular HD easily outsold, not only HR but also EJ & HK. The myth that the HD was unpopular back then, was established in the 70s & 80s by motoring journalists with very keen hindsight. If you read the various motoring reviews (magazines & newspapers) of the time, it was no less popular than many other model series during the 60s. Other than styling criticism by some, over the pointy front guards, most liked its modern styling, more roomy interior & performance of both the Powerglide & the X2 engine. They whinged about the brakes, which they had been doing for decades (rightly so!!), but this was tempered by the fact that they were no worse than the oppositions' brakes & they also knew that the front discs were coming soon. The plain fact is the HD was not unpopular in its day & buyers were not eagerly awaiting its replacement, the HR series.
The best period of sales generally was the mid 60s, in fact the highest grossing sales month in GM-H's history was May 1965 when the Aust. economy was going gangbusters, the HD was selling up a storm & the EH utes & vans were in runout. The low FE/FC numbers were due to slow (but growing) post-war economic times, but even at these figures Holden had 45-50% of the total market. FB & EK plateaued due to the 1960 'credit squeeze'. HR saw the first strong competition from Ford & Chrysler (XR & VC) & was also on the market for too long. HT onwards would have been eroded due to Holden own Torana models, which gradually ate into the larger car's sales. By 1975 they also had Gemini & by 1979 they had Commodore. For several months in 1975 the large Holden was knocked off its no. 1 sales spot for the first time (by the XB Ford). 70s sales numbers were also eroded by the high inflationary price spiral of that time.
The period of late 1990s & early 2000s was also very strong for Holden with the VT selling 303,895 units in 35 months (8,682) & the VX selling 211,125 units in 23 months (9180) & the VY selling 241,909 units in 23 months (10,517). The VT & VX figures are very impressive given that these series consisted only of sedans & wagons. Statesmans, utes & Monaros had their own series names & Holden also had many other cars selling well in their own categories.
To my knowledge the longest selling vehicle of any model series (for an Australian built Holden) would be the VS ute. These sold from April 1995 until they were replaced by the VU ute in December 2000, 68 months in total, which even eclipses the 48-215's run of 59 months.
Dr Terry
Last edited by Dr Terry; 26-03-2014 at 09:33 AM.
I'm certain you have it right Terry, the VS is the longest run. Not sure when the last one made was, I bought the last or second last manual available on Xmas Eve 2000 but it was 8/00 plated from memory and came from Victoria. There were still auto ute and S utes around until at least Feb 01 for sale, but it is when the final one built was completed that is important. I have a feeling it may be August possibly Sept 00. I'm sure I have seen 10/00 VU's but not certain.
Although they changed series, one car that remained unchanged in external appearance (apart from a front guard badge) for a long time was the HQ-HZ cab chassis. It rivals the VS ute in that regard, from the beginning of commercial production around 10-11/71 through to the end of HZ commercial production around 2/80 so about 100 months. But not a single series designation, however probably remained closer as a base spec from start to finish than VS did.
Another long runner was V2 from first build around 11-12/2001 through to 8/2004, not that far off HQ's run.
Last edited by HK1837; 26-03-2014 at 11:12 AM. Reason: Typo fix
some great info there guys
BQZ
What's popular or unpopular with the press seems to have little reflection in sales that's for sure. Poor old HX Sandman values still suffers from the press magnified pollution issues. In reality the sales figures show that there was no issues with this. It was actually a much bigger seller than HZ.
Dr Terry, do you have a breakdown on commercial vehicle sales through to WB?
Last edited by wbute; 26-03-2014 at 02:07 PM.
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