Toyota... No Holdon... uhm maybe Toyota....

[Mux213]

There was one thing that I found really interesting while being here in Sydney. It seems that in the early 90ies, I'm not sure about the reasoning why, Holden and Toyota became friends and some serious crossbreeding was going on.

Besides our lovely Corolla and Camry modes being sold here on the Toyota batch, they where also rebatched as Holdens and cars like the Apollo saw the light of day.

The other way around happened aswell. Holdon created this thing called a Commodore VN. Basically an Vauxhaul Omega but then bigger and with an old pushrod Buick V6 in the front. My neighboor has this early VN station that I've been slowly helping him get in running condition again with the idea I might take it off his hands as a cheap run around.
At the time a mate of mine already mentioned that the VN was also sold by Toyota as the Lexcen or something.

So here I was with my wife meeting up with a friend of hers. We're talking about how we where thinking of renting a car to drive around for easter a bit and she sais, well I got this old car that I'm not using much, would you like to lend it for the weekend?

Guess what, its a Toyota Lexcen. So I got it for the weekend. I just drove it around the block a bit and I have to say, its weird...

I'll take some pics of it over the weekend.

(owh and it is RWD.. auto though..)

[mc68]

they did it later on in about 96/97 too...

holden wanted a mid to large car (camry) toyota kinda wanted a larger car for our market...they still sold their own badged cars...yet holden dealerships sold Novas (corollas) and Apollo's (camrys)...Toyota dealerships sold Only Lexcens (Commodores) they never sold anything compared to the corolla and holden didnt make a car like that (the astra wasnt australian made, which was a close variant to the rolla) The merger went very badly

They are Buckets of shit. very very very bad cars. theres a reason that era of commodore is the most stolen cars in Australia...nobody wants them...

you can get a vn commo for under a $100 now

Also we had mazdas which are fords (vice versa) as they were owned by ford back then. Nissans as Fords (corsair vs pintara) Nissans that are Holdens (our early astras were nissan pulsars) and For 3 years, nissan made every engine for Commodores (rb30)

[ZaX]

And now this days Nissan's = Renault and vice versa.

[D.Wars]

yeah. I saw it too when i was in australia. If you see a car that you don't know what it is, it's a Holden. Do you see a car that you recognise, think again, 'cause big chance that it's a Holden!

The Suzuki Swift is also a car that i saw as a Holden there.

[Mux213]

Yeah I think that was the only way to get your car to market at some point, make holden sell them for you

Its really amazing, I think there are Holdens running around which are from a dozen different brands in Europa. The swift indeed, I believe its sold as a Holden Barina, but also most of the Deawoo cars run around here Holden badged

Anyways, the Lexcen is an interesting gasguzzler, it looks ok but its not in the best nick. It seems to run ok enough but there are some issues with the engine. My wife's friend's husband mentioned he recently had some fixes done but wasn't happy with the result at all. From working on the engine in my neighbors car I didn't really get the idea the engine was difficult. I did get the idea Holden engineers had a field day trying to modify this FWD buick engine to its RWD combination. The way things are organised in the engine bay look like many of the engine bays of our Hachi's look when we try to fit in engines from late model FWD rolla's, nothing fits and everything is in places you can see weren't designed for it. They even split the coolent reservior in two, a pressure reservoir and an overfill reservior at opposite sides of the engine bay, wtf?!? Its a maze with coolent lines through the entire engine bay..

But hey I aint complaining, I'll get this car checked out to see if I can expect any serious repairs in the near future and then choose between either the lexcen or the station and end up with a cheap run around for the family. Lots better then spending $$$$$ I need for more important things.

I did have a big laugh tonight though. I filled up the lexcen, 45 liters, the tank was nearly empty. Ended up paying 55 AUD. I'm sure you australians think thats a lot, but the last time I filled up my Hachi it was 35 liters and I paid over 50 euros, that over 100 AUD by todays currency rates !!!!

[banpei]

Damn... We want such fuelprices!
However the price is (I thought) currently around 1,20 euros so your refill would nowadays be something like 42 euros.

BTW: the swift was also rebadged and reengineerd by Subaru as the Justy AWD.
And all Daewoo cars are nowadays rebadged as Chevrolet in Europe... Don't have to explain that such thing is an unwise thing to do for a brand in financial crisis.

[Eircamae86]

Sure the want to rename the new 86 as a subaru, the world is a bad place now, thanks america, you guys are awsome.

[banpei]

Maybe you can thank them...but we were the ones following them blindly.

[mc68]

unleaded is cheap here...premium (95) and u98 is usually about 20c/l more

[Mux213]

mc68 I still rather be paying $1.20 or $1.30 then 1.20 Euros a liter

The world sure is a strange place nowadays...

Btw, the Lexcen turned out to be a 94 model, so its a VR instead of VN commy.. awell...