i agree with mayo... its like ford rebadging the rx8... its mazda's quality, not ford's....

 

Look, this is pointless.

Holden is a fully owned subsidiary of GM. It's been that way since long before the Monaro existed. All of its cars are built on GM global platforms and with GM global engines, including the Monaro. It's got the same motor as a Corvette. How'd that get in there if Holden isn't just GM's Australian branch office? The Monaro is by no means an independently designed car that was absorbed by GM after it was conceived.

All GM is doing by selling the Monaro as a Pontiac in the USA is taking a car originally developed by one of its subsidiaries for sale in one market and selling it in a new market. Even Honda does this. The Civic hatchback was designed in England by Honda UK based on a global platform. The new TL was designed by Honda USA based on a global platform. The only difference is that Honda established those subsidiaries rather than buying other companies and turning them into subsidiaries.

 

Noooo...The Monaro has the same LS1 engine as the GTO. In fact, the GTO is a Monaro with a different front grille and bumper.

What other company are you talking about? Holden and Opel is GM and have been for well over a decade. And how about the LS1 engine. That's a full-bred American engine that the Australians has been using for their own for a while, so you can't exactly say the Monaro CV8 is all Austrailian.

 

but honda protrays the same quality in products throughout the world... GM suffers with its domestic brands... im glad they are finally raising the bar, but they arent doing it from base camp..

 

i can see what you're saying with the global platform and engine. the monaro wouldn't have been developed or wouldn't be the same if GM hadn't provided these things. but you didn't answer my question; where would GM be if they didn't have the power and resources to go buying out companies left and right? global platform or no, they would not have been able to produce that kind of car on their own.

when honda establishes a branch in another region/country, they are starting it with their own resources, ideas, innovations, technology, and manpower. they don't just go somewhere, look for a company that is desiging nice things and buy them out. things belong to GM because they aquire them, not because they develop them. opel and holden may be wholly owned subsidaries of GM, but the things they develop usually look pretty independent from any mainstream american GM products. if GM would do that all by themselves, why haven't they done it? we've all seen the cars that opel develops for the european market. they may share a platform and/or engine, but they are leaps and bounds beyond any american-GM developed car. can any american-made-GM car stack up to them? GM simply would not be able to do it on their own if they couldn't have bought those companies out.

 

How come our Lumina was never that badass

 

Look, GM bought Opel in 1929. Holden was originally started by a joint venture between GM and Holden Motor Body Builders Ltd in 1931 to build assorted Chevrolet models on Australian soil. Holden didn't even design its first car that wasn't a rebadged GM model from the USA until 1948.

By the time the Omega/Commodore and Monaro came around both companies were nothing more than regional subsidiaries of GM, no different than something like Ford Europe or Ford Australia.

Pontiac selling the Monaro as a GTO is no different than if Ford decided to import the Falcon over here.

 

I for one am glad that Pontiac finally got around to marketing a car with a decent chassis in the States. All of the Opels I've rented in Europe have handled beautifully compared to what is offered on the domestic front.

 

so why hasn't GM been using holdens and opels widely in the states until recently? they bring cars, designs and ideas over now because they finally realize they're losing a lot of market to imports and they can't compete with their own domestic designs.

and are opels and holdens designed by american engineers and designers?

 

So what if they're not American GM engineers? They're still GM engineers. Pretty much every car company has regional design offices and engineering staffs that have their products distributed worldwide.

If you want to think of it as a "home market" kind of thing, look at the Acura MDX and USDM Honda Odyssey. Both of those cars were designed by Honda North America and are only built in Canada. Yet Honda imports them from Canada for sale in Japan.