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  1. #101
    Thailand Expat David48atTD's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AntRobertson View Post
    Even the Bathurst 1000 has had a fairly eclectic list of entrants and winners. Everything from Minis which dominated (finishing pos. 1 - 9 in '66) to legendary fire-breathing Nissans that were effectively banned for being a bit too good.

    In its pre-Bathurst iteration it was even won by a Vauxhall of all things.

    They were the days when I curled up in the fetal position and watched the race from flag drop to flag drop.

    Couldn't give a rat's arse now with cars you can't buy off the showroom floor.

    Remember the rule that they must have/had sold 500 of the variant for the car's eligibility to race.

    Alpha Sud's racing along XU1's
    Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago ...


  2. #102
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by David48atTD
    They were the days when I curled up in the fetal position and watched the race from flag drop to flag drop.
    This.

    I still remember the days it was a major event on the calendar.

    Quote Originally Posted by David48atTD
    Couldn't give a rat's arse now with cars you can't buy off the showroom floor.
    And that.

    Can't even remember the last time I bothered watching. I'd kinda lost interest even before all the shenanigans to be fair but then found there was just no reason to go back to it.

  3. #103
    Thailand Expat Fondles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    I watched the Bathurst 12 hour recently. A Bentley won- that was a first. So have toyota, porsche, nissan, mazda, bmw, benz, ferrari, mclaren, mitsubishi- in fact just about everyone but, you know who.

    And yet a Holden won both the Bathurst 24hr races !!!

  4. #104
    Thailand Expat Fondles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AntRobertson View Post
    to legendary fire-breathing Nissans that were effectively banned for being a bit too good.
    And the head engineer lives in Thailand and is heavily involved in car racing (Thailand Super Series), nice guy and was one of my Managers at a company I previously worked at.

  5. #105
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fondles
    And the head engineer lives in Thailand and is heavily involved in car racing (Thailand Super Series), nice guy and was one of my Managers at a company I previously worked at.
    Really, that's cool.

    Not that B-Quik guy is it? I don't follow much of the Thai racing scene but that lot seem to pop-up on the social medias a lot.

  6. #106
    or TizYou?
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    Ted Bullpit would be turning in his grave.


  7. #107
    Thailand Expat Fondles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AntRobertson View Post
    Really, that's cool.

    Not that B-Quik guy is it? I don't follow much of the Thai racing scene but that lot seem to pop-up on the social medias a lot.
    2 of the 4 cars in the team do carry Bquik stickers.....

    I was involved when the team was only the Mazda2's.

    He also does work on the "supercars" helping sort out suspension and vehicle dynamics.

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  8. #108
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    Nice one. I've never been involved with racing in any sort of real capacity but it must be quite interesting.

  9. #109
    Thailand Expat Fondles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AntRobertson View Post
    Nice one. I've never been involved with racing in any sort of real capacity but it must be quite interesting.
    It is intersting and I'd like to get back to being invloved but I simply don't have the time these days, I do get up to Burriram and spectate every race though.....annoyed I could not go to Hanoi for the season start.

  10. #110
    CCBW Stumpy's Avatar
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    Too bad GM did not attempt to market the ZR2 here. This and the Ford Raptor are excellent offroad machines

    2020 AEV Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 Bison First Drive Review: Going Further

  11. #111
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    Did you know that around 50% of trucks on the road here are still made in Australia? Or that an Adelaide manufactured supercar will be among the worlds fastest (well, when it finally hits market)? Neither did I.

    Good article from ABC-


    Holden's demise doesn't signal the death of Australia's automotive industry


    Holden was Australia's car and the death of the brand has punctuated the end of mass car manufacturing in Australia a couple of years ago.
    But if you think Australia is completely out of the automotive business, then you are very much mistaken.
    According to industry analysts IBISWorld, Australian automotive manufacturing generated $4.1 billion of revenue last financial year, with 388 businesses operating across 466 workplaces employing nearly 7,500 people.
    The same report also highlights the blow from the mass car producers pulling out of the market — revenue is down by almost two-thirds over the past decade, with the bulk of that fall occurring since the big three remaining local car makers (Ford, Holden and Toyota) ceased Australian production during 2016 and 2017.


    However, while IBISWorld is forecasting further decline, the losses will no longer be precipitous.
    Australia's auto sector is still expected to generate more than $3.2 billion in revenue in 2023-24, with 301 businesses employing almost 4,400 people.
    That may leave you wondering, 'what's left?'
    The biggest part of the answer is trucks and buses, which respectively make up 54 and 14 per cent of the remaining auto industry in Australia.
    While Australia now imports virtually all its cars, the nation still has three significant truck factories owned by multinational giants Volvo, PACCAR and CNH Industrial, which between them have close to 50 per cent market share.
    When you pass a Volvo, Mack, Kenworth or Iveco truck on the road, the chances are it was manufactured here.


    Volvo's factory in Brisbane employs around 650 staff, according to a recent report from the Federal Department of Industry, and can currently produce 3,000 trucks a year, with plans to invest $25 million to increase that capacity to 4,000.
    The company makes around a billion dollars a year of revenue in Australia and IBISWorld said that has been growing solidly for each of the past five years.
    PACCAR Australia makes its Kenworth trucks in Melbourne and employs more than 800 people in manufacturing and wholesaling, while CNH Industrial's Iveco truck and bus factory is located in Dandenong, just outside Melbourne.

    With close to $2 billion in annual revenue between the three of them, these are serious manufacturing outfits.
    They also utilise significant quantities of locally produced automotive components — for example, according to the Department of Industry, Volvo's Brisbane factory has about 90 local suppliers providing more than 2,500 different components, many of which are made in Australia.
    Some companies that made parts for the car makers have even survived and thrived by shifting to producing components for the truck industry.
    Exports, aftermarket and new tech

    However, it's not just those companies supplying parts to the big truck makers that are still in business.
    In a survey conducted in January 2018 — admittedly only a few months after the last mass-production car factory in Australia had closed — the Department of Industry found that 74 per cent of automotive supply chain businesses were still trading.
    This figure jumped to 86 per cent of Australian-owned businesses, while about half the multinationals had closed their local operations once the big car makers shut down production.
    Many survived through a new or increased focus on exports, helped by $1.3 billion in federal assistance to the auto sector between the announcement of the factory closures in 2013 and the final shutdown in 2017, with a portion of this money going to help establish new export markets.

    When this latest round of transition support started, at least 56 per cent of eligible businesses were sending products overseas. By 2017 that had risen to 81 per cent.
    And, while many foreign companies simply shut up shop locally, some others also expanded their exports.
    Bosch diodes made in Australia are now being sent to Europe, the USA, India, China, Japan, Korea and elsewhere, with the factory's annual output of 120 million units making up roughly a fifth of global market share for those particular components.
    Nissan exited car mass production in Australia a long time ago, closing its assembly line in the early 1990s, with hundreds of job losses, as reported at the time by the ABC's Mark Colvin for Four Corners.


    However, the company still retains a casting plant at Dandenong, which supplies critical aluminium components for the company's global operations, including the Leaf electric vehicle — for some parts it is the sole supplier.
    Let's also not forget that, even as Holden pulls out entirely, Ford still employs more than 2,000 people in its Asia-Pacific design and engineering hub in Melbourne and says it has no plans to go anywhere.
    At a time when we're talking about the decline of Australian automotive industries, some companies are just starting up.
    Wheelmaker Carbon Revolution is one of them. Founded in 2007, it is selling lightweight, single-piece carbon fibre wheels to major carmakers for high-performance vehicles, such as the Ford Shelby Mustang GT350R.
    It's still loss-making but is in the process of industrialising and expanding its production in an industry that is supposed to be dying in this country.
    For those looking ahead to the future, Australian start-up Baraja is developing LiDAR technology to guide driverless cars from its base in Sydney's north.

    Niche vehicles

    While mass-market car production is over, boutique carmakers still exist and are even setting up.

    Bolwell started making sports cars in the 1960s and 70s and, after a long hiatus, has returned to producing even faster supercars in its factory in Melbourne.

    But it's got competition setting up in Adelaide, with arguably Australian motorsport's most famous name, Brabham, building Australia's first hypercar, the BT62.

    "What's a hypercar?" you may ask. Just one that can set the fastest lap recorded by a closed-wheel vehicle around Australia's most iconic racetrack, Mount Panorama.

    The BT62 set a lap time of just under 1:59 a year ago, shaving almost 5 seconds of the fastest lap by a V8 Supercar.

    With a limited production run of just 70 cars and a price tag around $2 million, it certainly can't be described as mass-market.

    Another speciality market that Australian vehicle manufacturers are looking to exploit is defence.

    German defence giant Rheinmetall has just finished building a $170 million manufacturing facility in Queensland, which is expected to commence operations later this year.

    It's been constructed to handle a $5.2 billion contract for the company to build more than 200 armoured reconnaissance vehicles for the Australian Army.

    So, while the Australian auto industry has shrunk dramatically over the past few years, reports of its death are premature and exaggerated.


    Holden's demise doesn't signal the death of Australia's automotive industry - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)


    I realise that Holden has an iconic status in Australian car lore, but basically I say good riddance GM. A corporate sponge, milking the Australian taxpayer for millions in subsidies, while pushing out increasingly irrelevant and defunct vehicles.

    Think I'll buy a Brabham instead.
    Last edited by sabang; 26-02-2020 at 09:03 AM.

  12. #112
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    Farang Ky Ay's Avatar
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    People who bought Chevrolet cars/trucks at full price prior to the current promotion are now demanding compensation... Don't know on what ground, maybe they think promotions shoul be retroactive?

  13. #113
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    I guess depending on the timing maybe on the assumption that they would have full factory support / service?

    Dunno really that's actually quite a tricky issue.

  14. #114
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dragonfly View Post
    those NZ cars are just too horrible for words,

    Opel is a big fooking joke here in Europe,
    You have much in common with opel then.

  15. #115
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    Good morning, Chass, how is your day

  16. #116
    Thailand Expat Fondles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AntRobertson View Post
    I guess depending on the timing maybe on the assumption that they would have full factory support / service?

    Dunno really that's actually quite a tricky issue.
    Whilst GM has said there will be servicing and spare parts available for 10 years I just cannot see remaining Chevrolet service centres putting much care into the servicing of someones cars.

  17. #117
    Thailand Expat AntRobertson's Avatar
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    True, probably less than zero fucks given.

    Also buying a brand new car is a pretty crappy financial move at the best of times but I guess taking the plunge and then almost immediately having it devalued even further by discounting and the withdraw has gotta suck.

  18. #118
    Thailand Expat Fondles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AntRobertson View Post
    True, probably less than zero fucks given.

    Also buying a brand new car is a pretty crappy financial move at the best of times but I guess taking the plunge and then almost immediately having it devalued even further by discounting and the withdraw has gotta suck.
    If the top spec colorado went to 50% off I'd buy a couple.

  19. #119
    A Cockless Wonder
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    Quote Originally Posted by sabang View Post
    The BT62 set a lap time of just under 1:59 a year ago, shaving almost 5 seconds of the fastest lap by a V8 Supercar.
    5 seconds off Mount Panorama is more like waxing than shaving.

    ouch!

  20. #120
    CCBW Stumpy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fondles View Post
    Whilst GM has said there will be servicing and spare parts available for 10 years I just cannot see remaining Chevrolet service centres putting much care into the servicing of someones cars.
    GM will outsource the service and repairs. I seriously doubt Chevrolet will keep service centers open here. They will likely set up a warehouse distribution center to hold parts. They will then close all service centers and send out a letter to all owners stating a list/location where you can have your vehicle serviced.

  21. #121
    CCBW Stumpy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fondles View Post
    If the top spec colorado went to 50% off I'd buy a couple.
    I'd buy one as well, no worries

  22. #122
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    Click the link to view the pics.

    Holden's enduring appeal in Indonesia reveals a 'Kingswood Country' time forgot - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

    The aesthetes of far away Port Melbourne would surely shudder, if only they knew.


    For more than half a century, each Holden ever designed in the auto company's Victorian inner-city studios was crafted and refined to survive the wear and tear of uncompromising owners.


    But a six-cylinder mobile monkey cage? It does not compute.


    Dewa Arthur is a Jakarta resident, a one-time gibbon owner and a die-hard third-generation Indonesian Holden devotee.


    He has so many fond memories of a life spent in Aussie muscle machines he could fill three boots full — one for each car he owns today.


    The tale of the wayward pet gibbon that almost trashed the interior of his beloved Holden Premier HQ is just one of them.


    "I had a gibbon for a pet before I was into this car," he recalls with a timid grin.


    "In the end, my mum trapped the monkey and put it inside that car because no-one was using it anyway."


    Famously built to last, Holdens can withstand a beating. But two to three hours of incarcerated gibbon nails clawing at the crisp white vinyl interior was too much, as the tattered lining in Dewa's 1972 heirloom still proves.


    Indonesia's Holden heartland


    Monkey mayhem aside, Arthur is the modern face of a Holden heartland in Indonesia stretching back to the brand's halcyon days in the 1960s.


    His life-long fascination with the brand began at the peak of its success, when he was a Year 5 school student in 1972.


    Back then, his grandfather splurged on what was then an expensive new model as a graduation gift for his son, Arthur's father, paying just over 5 million rupiah, equal to about $550.


    Just as Australian and New Zealand car-lovers slumped into public grief at General Motors' recent decision to axe the brand, many of the 500 or so owners in the archipelago to their north are also lamenting in the only way they know how — loud and proud on the streets.




    The first public gathering of the Jakarta chapter of the Holden Indonesia Club since the news broke prompted six owners of gleaming vintage models to fire-up on a tribute street cruise: two Kingswoods, two Statesmans, a Monaro and a Torana.


    Local branch chairman Arinaya, who like many Indonesians only goes by one name, drives a striking orange Kingswood ute he painstakingly repaired from "rubbish" rusted parts and proudly wears his official "Holden Indonesia" tunic for this impromptu wake.


    "We as club members are very disappointed knowing that [Holden is ending the brand]," he said.


    Beyond Indonesian shores, the story of Holden's successful export foray into the tropics over more than three decades isn't widely known.


    It started in 1959, when shipments of the FC model arrived in Jakarta in what the industry calls a "Completely Knocked Down" state — simply a box of factory new parts and pieces to be put together at a plant in the capital.


    At its heights in the late 1960s and 1970s, the company was shipping thousands of cars, having become a prestige marque.


    The Aussie cars found favour as status symbols for wealthy government officials and military top brass; some were even released for private sale to colonels and civil servants as their mileage built up.


    The runaway success of the Kingswood, popular among taxi drivers, prompted the opening of a second assembly factory in Surabaya, East Java.


    But by the time the Gemini and Commodore brands were developed in the late 1980s, European and Japanese carmakers had swept the country with smaller, lighter and cheaper options than the high-powered Australian offerings.


    Holden sales soon crashed to fewer than 500 a year and the Australasian export experiment was over.


    Old Holdens never die, they just get flattened in monster truck shows.
    At least a few Indonesian relics met their end as mangled wrecks for public entertainment when touring American-inspired monster truck shows were all the rage in the early 2000s.


    If they were spared that inglorious fate, most of the surviving cars were garaged in the care of enthusiasts who still gather regularly for local branch rallies of the owners' club, burnout exhibitions, or an annual national "jamboree".


    Despite the imminent death of the brand, Holden fans in Jakarta are also hoping the vehicles' scarcity could actually increase the value of their cars.


    In fact, to maintain their value and keep them running, they're pleading with both the Australian and Indonesian Governments to relax customs and shipping restrictions that have long been a bugbear when trying to obtain second-hand parts.


    "We from Indonesia hope very much they will change, to allow Australian fabricators and wreckers to sell parts here, especially for models from the FB Holden to the VL Commodore," Holden Indonesian National Chairman Boim Solihin said.


    Fuelled by nostalgia — Holden memories outlive the cars
    Whether they win the battle for free trade in parts, this Javanese corner of "Kingswood country" is a diaspora driven by cherished memories of the "Lion" badge.


    Stories from long-completed road trips still loom large in the rear-vision mirrors of these roaring automobiles, just as they do for Australian and New Zealand brothers and sisters of the brand.


    "I proposed to my wife in that car," entrepreneur and Jakarta entertainment director Udzir Harris recalls of his 1960s FB panel van.


    He's an owner of an almost 60-year-old automotive threatened species, determined to keep his car going longer than the Holden company itself.


    With motivation, maintenance and a little money to grease the wheel, there's every reason to believe he will.

  23. #123
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    Holden's enduring appeal in Indonesia reveals a 'Kingswood Country' time forgot - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

    Is someone ever going to fix this fucked up forum software?

    You have to substitute abc . net . au for xxx.xxx.xx in the browser

    Or click this short link : Short Link
    Last edited by TizMe; 29-02-2020 at 01:26 PM.

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