Bonzer from Aussie

Commodore says its VEs will be survivors.

Rarely does an Australian car see the sort of fanfare accorded to this new Commodore. Red carpet, dry ice, searchlights, car-sized catwalks and packed ranks of TV cameras greeted the VE, as it blinked in the blast of flashbulbs and the scrutiny of a market made gun-shy by rising fuel prices.

Shouldn't Holden be embarrassed about the timing? Should it sneak the car in under cover of darkness or suspend a 1-litre engine under that muscular bonnet as a sop to scaremongers and greenies?

Holden Australia chairman and managing director Denny Mooney will admit the car will not be a frugal feeder. It's heavier, more powerful and less aerodynamic than the outgoing Commodore.

But he has a point when he says fuel economy isn't the only reason people choose their vehicle - and the higher up the size and aspiration scale, the less significant that factor is.

Holden has introduced a much superior car that aims to reduce the number of compromises a buyer has to make, hence expectations of a better entry-level price when that is announced here next month.

Clearly, the punter sporting a Holden tattoo will make any number of compromises to drive the right car. But the rest of us won't, and the old order wouldn't do.

Despite ongoing upgrades, the suspension, especially to the rear, didn't offer certainty in times of trouble. The build quality, especially in terms of panel gaps, was often poor, and even Holden NZ managing director Peter Keley admitted that Holden had relied on the customer to pinpoint early problems for too long.

Holden had grown complacent that the cars didn't have to match up to the competition, people bought them anyway. But Mooney has plans for Holden. He wants to see Australia become an integral part of GM's design and engineering mix, exporting cars and expertise to the empire worldwide. A swift kick in the management pants early on in this $1 billion programme wrought a revolution. Quality control departments were formed to oversee every task and to set benchmarks such as BMW's 5 Series. A virtual reality studio was bullied from the bean-counters. Attention to detail was fostered in every department.

Ally all that to the undeniable passion flowing through the veins of every Holden employee and you have a formidable taskforce intent on releasing only the best.

Employees have been driving the cars every day covering one million of the 3.4 million test km.

At last Holden has a large car with the handsome lines and the build quality to compete worldwide, plus understated visual muscle to do justice to the concept.

This is a handsome car, from the humblest Omega replacing the outgoing Acclaim and Executive to the performance and luxury models.

Those flaring guards, the subtle crease defining the sweeping flanks, the high waistline and short overhangs, the differentiation in lights and spoilers, grille and interiors. It's a masterful production that will travel well, which is key to a car that will carry GM's rear-drive flag worldwide, starting with GM's board of directors show in Detroit next month.

This Commodore is longer, wider and taller. The wheels have been pushed out in every direction, the underpinnings altered for greater safety and better use of space. For example, the fuel tank now sits ahead of the rear axle, and the boot has gone up 31 litres to 496.

There's more power under the bonnet for both the 3.6-litre V6 and the now 6-litre V8 which, with 270kW and 510Nm, will be the most powerful V8 engine Holden has offered. There's a six-speed auto shared with Cadillac and Corvette, an all-new front and rear suspension, and an all-new interior designed on a modular concept that's allowed one basic cabin shape to offer several different looks and layouts. That not only means distinctive characters for the different levels of car, but offers the flexibility of left- or right-hand-drive, of tailoring to different markets, and of four-wheel-drive in future.

The standard specification will be high, with ESP stability control standard, as are four airbags and alloy wheels across the range.

What does it drive like? We won't know until the middle of next month, but Holden Supercar ace Greg Murphy is stoked.

"It's very sharp, the ride is sensational - and the grip! I think you'll find it's quite different," he says. "I'm not supposed to give too much away, but it now recovers well from bumps and that ESP is so smooth and unobtrusive sometimes you don't know it's happening. I fired into turn one at Lang Lang [proving ground] the other day and the ESP settled the car down."

Fellow racer Jason Richards agrees. "In the past, you took a road car on the circuit and the first thing you'd do is switch [the ESP] off. It was very intrusive. Honestly, with this one you could drive flat out, very hard, and it was actually helping, not hindering you."

ESP for a racing driver? "It's not for me," Murphy says. "In some ways it's a bit of a shame we've had to do that, to fix the shortcomings of the driver, but it does an incredible job."

"You should hear it," he says of the V8 noise. "You'll still have your Kiwi bloke ripping the exhaust off, but it has a lovely note and it's seriously very, very fast."

The V6 naturally feels different, says Murphy. "You can really hustle it. On parts of the track at Lang Lang the V6 has the speed of the V8. It offers finesse, rather than brute force - the V8's a sledgehammer."

The new auto gearbox is a ZF. "It's silky-smooth," says Murphy. "The up-change is just faultless. We've had the old four-speed for too long, but this new box was worth the wait."

First impressions are that the whole car is worth the wait, and that it's good enough for big-car fans to make the economy compromise.

Although it's hard to say for sure until we've driven it, the new Commodore should be good enough to succeed at a time when, as Denny Mooney says, "History counts for little. Buy Australian counts for little. Cars must survive on their own merit."