Holden looks to Sixties for inspiration

By ALASTAIR SLOANE

SYDNEY - Flashback to 1968. Sir Keith Holyoake was Prime Minister, Sid Going scored two tries to beat France at Eden Park, and the Tet Offensive was a watershed in the Vietnam War.

The Monkees had a hit with Daydream Believer, the ill-fated Prague Spring flowered in Czechoslovakia - and Holden launched a two-door car called the Monaro.

The coupe, the first vehicle of its type in Australia, gave the carmaker a legion of new fans.

It was bold and showy, with a throaty exhaust note - an automotive equivalent of home-grown Australian rock singer Johnny O'Keefe.

It came with a choice of 19 engine and gearbox combinations. It had street-cred. It won races on sealed circuits and on rough roads in the bush.

Pub bands sang songs about it.

Thirty-three years on, Holden has set out to lure another generation of fans with the Monaro's successor, a two-door as smooth and stylish as O'Keefe and the original Monaro were raw.

It is based on the Commodore sedan and was unveiled at the Sydney Motor Show yesterday and beamed live to television audiences around Australia.

For a while there, it was bigger than the Melbourne Cup, or the Boxing Day cricket test.

It's the car Australians have been waiting to see for three years, since a concept model captured the imagination of show-goers in 1998.

Holden was overwhelmed by public reaction to the study car and moved quickly to put it into production. It even asked Australians in a nation-wide poll what it should be called. Everybody said Monaro, just like the original.

Back in '68, Holden didn't have a name for the original until a few months before it was released.

The design of the car was influenced by American models such as the Chevrolet Camaro and Oldsmobile Toronado and although Holden had sifted through hundreds of suggestions, none seemed to be fair dinkum - until Noel Bedford, a member of Holden's design team in Melbourne, went on holiday. He was driving though southern New South Wales when a sign on a building in Cooma caught his eye.

"It said Monaro County Council. It reminded me of Marlboro Country and Camaro," he said.

"It seemed so simple and logical. Why hadn't somebody thought of it before?

"I was quite excited and couldn't wait to get back to work."

Holden executives liked the name. Head office in Detroit liked it, too. But what does it mean?

Wind on a plateau, said Bedford. It's an Aboriginal word.

Holden built 11 Monaro models before discontinuing the range in 1979. Now it's back, with a choice of V6 and V8 engines and colours and trim.

Holden says it is holding more than 900 deposits on the vehicle on both sides of the Tasman. The car is expected to go on sale in New Zealand in January.

It is sleeker, safer, sassier, faster and more fun than the 1968 model. But the name remains.