Holden’s Commodore line at Elizabeth now up for sale

THE bits that make up the last remaining jewel in Holden’s crown – its Elizabeth manufacturing plant – are now up for sale.

The car maker has listed 131 separate bits of its manufacturing line on global auction site Maynards under the title “GM Holden Vehicle Manufacturing and Assembly Facility“ – less than five months before the last locally made Commodore rolls off it – as it prepares for a wind-down of the business.

The site says the equipment “is currently in use and will be decommissioned at various stages throughout 2017”.

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Assets include laser-wielding robots, press lines, plastic injection moulding machines, and almost 800 metres of door assembly line. Of note, the auction site mentions Holden plans to sell off its entire car body assembly line comprising 76 robots and “Zeta ... body side assembly fixtures” for both left- and right-hand drive cars.

Holden is working towards the shutdown of almost 70 years of Australian manufacturing – it will be the last of the three carmakers in an industry that collapsed spectacularly in late 2013 scooping up Ford, the first to fall in October last year, and Toyota, which will shutter its production lines on October 3.

Holden will build its last Commodore on October 20.

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Unlike previous auctions of the Port Melbourne engine-casting facility, which built its last high function V6 in November last year, the site isn’t showing the current highest bidder.

However, it lists the currency for transactions in Australian dollars, suggesting that whatever money Holden raises from the auction, it will keep.

Holden did have a chance to dispose of the Elizabeth site as a job lot. Early last year Belgian businessmen Guido Dumarey, a specialist at taking over businesses in distress and rebuilding them, proposed buying the car maker’s entire manufacturing operations, but backed away from the deal after deciding jointly with Holden it would become “unviable” to continue building cars.

Holden’s association with the Elisabeth site is a long one. Work started on building the plant in May 1958, with the body hardware plant opening in 1960, and the body and vehicle assembly line in 1962.

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It has even hosted royalty; Queen Elizabeth visited and inspected the plant as part of her 1963 Royal visit to Australia.

At one time, the Holden-run plant was considered among the most efficient General Motors-owned factories worldwide.

Holden’s manufacturing fate was effectively sealed in 2013 when then managing director Mike Devereux said he needed to slice $3750 from the cost of making cars here to stay competitive within the GM world, proposing sweeping wage cuts to help it remain viable. He fought hard to make it happen.

And then Ford fell.

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