Why GM killed America’s Holden ute

It’s March, 2008. New York is slowly coming out of its winter slumber. Spring is in the air and with it a renewed hope.

For Holden, that hope took centre stage at the New York motor show. Hope was shaped like a Commodore ute.

Americans have a love/hate relationship with car-based utilities. For every Chev El Camino and Ford Ranchero, there are a thousand trillion F-Series, Silverado and Ram pick-up trucks. Utility, in America, means big. And bigger, in the United States, is always better. Apparently.

But, in defiance of the market, General Motors took the wraps off the Pontiac G8 ST in New York in 2008, promising the Holden-based ute, “doesn’t look like a CAR, but it outperforms a lot of them”.

Aussies, of course, didn’t find that quote in the least bit surprising, the G8 ST (for Sport Truck) based our very own and much-loved Holden ute.

GM was already selling Holden Commodore sedans in the United States, rebadged and re-nosed as the Pontiac G8. Sales began in March 2008, at the same time as GM was taking the covers of the second part of its two-pronged Aussie assault.

Like its sedan sibling, the G8 ST was to be built at Holden’s Elizabeth plant in South Australia with then Holden boss Mark Reuss stating that the production line would be able to handle capacity if the Aussie ute became a hit in the US.

The G8 ST was slated to go on sale in the second half of 2009 (as a 2010 model year) with a choice of either a 3.6-litre six-cylinder or a stonking 6.0-litre V8 making 270kW. It was expected to cost around $US31,000 ($AU45,000) for the entry-level V6. Australians were paying significantly less, a 2010 Holden Ute SV6 starting from $39,490 while the Redline SS, on which the G8 ST was based, started at $51,990.

Other than its distinctive Pontiac grille (and the fact it was left-hand drive), the Pontiac G8 ST was pretty much a standard Holden VE ute as we knew and loved them here in Australia.

As excitement built in the US, General Motors held a poll, asking the public what the G8 ST should be called when launched later in the year.

Some 18,000 people weighed in and while there were suggestions that the the Chevrolet division's ‘El Camino’ name would make a comeback on the back of Australia’s own ute, it was ‘Sport Truck’ or ‘ST’ that emerged the winner.

General Motors’ timing couldn’t have been worse. Although the Global Financial Crisis began in mid-2007, the tentacles of its full impact – and a full-blown recession in the US – weren’t felt until 2008. No surprise then that GM pulled the pin on the G8 ST before it ever started.

As per company spokesperson, Jim Hopson: “With Pontiac being more focused on sporty fun to drive cars, we took a long look at the ST and it didn't fit with what our future vision of Pontiac would be. At that point, we decided to not proceed with this vehicle.”

Worse was still to come, General Motors announcing in late 2008 that the Pontiac brand would be retired by the end of 2010, shutting the doors on 84 years of motoring heritage.

The last Pontiac – a white G6 sedan – rolled off the production line in Orion Township, Michigan, in January 2010.

While the G8 ute was consigned to the role of prototype curio, the Commodore name – and Holden’s Elizabeth plant – was given a lifeline in late 2013, the car we knew as the VF Commodore SS-V Redline, going on sale in the US as the Chevrolet SS.

Again, timing was everything, and in 2014 Holden confirmed it would cease all Australian production in 2017. The Chevrolet SS was on borrowed time and with Holden’s local operations closed down, the SS too was put out to pasture at the end of 2017. Just 12,860 had found new homes in America between 2013-17.

While the Commodore badge itself limped on in Australia as the Opel-sourced Insignia, General Motors made no such concession in the US, the Chevrolet SS name dying along with the VF Commodore.