You’ve probably seen Holden’s offer of $500 if you test drive one of their cars and then go and buy a car from a rival brand. After six months of dismal sales with its new fully imported Commodore the move is not as risky as it may sound. According to Holden’s Marketing Director, Kristian Aquilina, “the idea is that once customers take a new Holden for a test drive and compare the value they’ll buy one of our cars.” The move is designed to counter a drop in showroom traffic since Holden became a full importer at the end of last year. And of course if you don’t buy a new Holden you have 30-days to provide proof that you actually bought another car of the same type and in a similar price range. Holden has also just announced a new permanent five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty across its range, up from 3 years/100,000k’s, after offering a promotional 7-year warranty earlier in the year. I’ve just driven three new fully-imported ZB Commodores and with fine tuning for our market they were simply great drivers – and frankly they had to be especially when the market generally has fallen in love with SUV’s. On top of a poor PR campaign by Holden to convince Australian’s they were simply ceasing local manufacture and not leaving the market altogether the move to SUV’s has hurt Commodore sales. But if you’re in the market for a conventional sedan drive one by any measure they are just so well- tailored to our demanding road conditions. I’m David Berthon

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