Holden funding open to question

"We like football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars.'' Those of a certain age might recall this ad jingle of the 1970s. Enduringly irritating though it is, it also has undeniable sociological significance. 

It bespeaks a long vanished era when football never meant a round ball, takeaway cusine was somewhat limited, Skippy was still on in the arvo and the foreign car makers who'd set up shop here could flog their wares behind a vast rampart of tarriffs. 

Much has changed. Ford and Holden have long since ceased to leave quality control to their customers and the Australian car market is the world's most over populated and competitive with some 230 models on sales. 

Which is why forking over $275 million of taxpayer money for Holden to keep producing its cars here is a gambit that's wide open to question. 

As Australian-made cars are outsold by those from not only Japan, but also Korea and Thailand, it's incumbent upon the two American and one Japanese carmaker still present to make cars that are world's best practice. Sorry, but they don't. 

Ford kind of gets a pass. The obituaries for the Falcon and the Terrritory are ready to run when Detroit pulls the plug on Broadmeadows in the next few years.

The Blue Oval will then follow the path of Mitsubishi to being a successful full importer.

Sufficiently incentivised, as I read someone in the business pages say, Toyota has agreed to keep bolting Camrys together in Melbourne. The hybrid version is a sound family car, though hardly compelling. Which brings us to General Motors Holden.

We can ignore the Commodore because you do and it's surely going to be replaced by some generic GM-derived world car. It's from such as these that the rest of the Holden's family car line-up is derived and none of them are anywhere near the top of their respective segments. 

The best of them is the Cruze, which has been adapted for, and is bolted together in, Australia. It is a thoroughly decent device, but tellingly, in today's edition of Carsguide, it is omitted from a comparison of the leading small cars. 

As worthy as it is in some versions, there are still four or five better small cars than the Cruze. Yet it's for the production of this car that Holden are subsidised by you and I. 

Whatever your position on local carmaking, surely our $275 million should buy a class leading car. Will the next Holdens make that grade? I'd like to hope so, but on Holden's current form, I very much doubt it.