Here is a related topic. This is now a photo in the public domain so it can be shared. Website shows 1965, probably closer to 1966 for the HT interior buck to be there. The HT buck you see on the right is the same one in the 2nd and 3rd photos. Look at the clock on the wall and the panelling and you can see the aspect of the 1st photo relative to the first.

Once you've zoomed in and looked around at the LC and HQ stuff all over the walls, have a close look at the HQ in the centre, with its chassis buck to the left. This was the car that was cancelled and replaced with the HQ design as we know it. This proves that for the HQ original release of 1970 to be met that there was already a lot of work gone into the car's design, remembering that its underpinnings were HK-HT not a whole new design as the HQ ended up. Also maybe ponder how the claims can be true that Ford Australia staff went to Detroit in the middle of 1968 to begin design on the XA Falcon? How did they get the cancelled design from a GMH studio? You can also see the 111" wheelbase on the sign behind the car on the wall. The image also shows you how far they were advanced with the HT's design at this stage assuming maybe late 1965. This means the HK was well and truly signed off by this stage, which also shows that for the HQ to start from scratch in early 1968 as claimed to be finished ready for the start of 1971 is near impossible.

http://www.hrc.org.au/images/Memories/Noel%20Bedford/design%20studio%202.jpg

http://www.hrc.org.au/images/Memories/Noel%20Bedford/design%20studio.jpg

http://www.hrc.org.au/images/Memories/Noel%20Bedford/Noel%20in%20seating%20buck.jpg

Are you saying that the car on the left in the first piccy looks like an XA Falcon ? I can't see many similarities, it looks more like an oversized TC Cortina. But maybe that's just me.

Dr Terry

I have seen VH Valiant and XA pictures side by side like so together in a studio with the year 1968 displayed.

I believe it's only one company that masters in a field and it's this company of people who work on all the new car designs to get them ready of the ground, be it GM Ford Chrysler, just as all the engines casting setup first starts with just one company only as well that has that type of specialist ability and they leave it to that one company who are the specialist in that field.

There are specialist who get all the main body setups off the ground stages to make it all work and then hand it over to the car company's.
The car company's only start off what they think they want and then give it to specialist company to deal with and then it's finish by that company who goes back to the car company and then the car company can add a few bits of what they want and then give it all the green light for that company to go build all the tooling so as to make it all happen.

Even with say going from a HQ front to a HJ front end Holden's boys may do the clay, but Holden does not make the tooling does it too make them panels. and then all cars get fiddled with as the production of that model progresses.

Look at the first 3 Holden's that USA made, then they did road testing and came up with problems, some specialist dudes from USA came and worked out what best to do, not just some bozo in Holden Australia ginning about with it, they would not of had a clue with such an advanced car at the time.

The Senator has unique rear sheetmetal, the additional rear pillar window, and a longer nose (as well as the IRS). It is not the same thing. It's like calling a HZ Statesman a Kingswood.
The smaller, and lighter Rekord is what our Commodore is based on, with the Senator front end as Terry pointed out.
The only exterior panels the Rekord shares with the Senator are the front doors, rear door skins, sills, and most of the roof skin. All other panels are unique to the Senator.
Like how different a HZ statesman is to the sedan (except their bootlids interchange - the Opel ones don't).

The Rekord only had small engines (around 2L), live axle (no IRS) and even ran 4-stud wheels......
It was only the Senator that got the IRS and the 3.0L 6, which is quite the boat anchor - it's almost as big as the Jag inline 6s from the 70s, and weighs as much as a 308.
And if you really looked at the Senator, you'd see where the WB Sedan front seats originated......


How can a VC handle so bad compared to a VB? They are effectively the same suspension - almost identical spring rates as each other, and the same struts & swaybars, and wheels/tyres for each relevant engine/body combo that you would compare from one to the other.
Holden continually improved the handling over time - moving the rack mounts on non-power steered cars, and altering spring rates, lower trailing arm lengths, and diff pinion angles over time.

I'm with Terry - the VL, moreso in FE2 form, is the pick of all VB-VP live axle Commodores when it comes to handling, from the factory.
It wasn't until they widened the front track with VR that the handling of the wider body gen2 Commodores caught up - the VR/VS front end was a big improvement over VN/VP.

I've owned & driven plenty of early Commodores over the years, so I'm not just comparing one car with clapped out shocks & tarring a whole model span with the same brush.

Looks can also be deceiving - have you ever driven a Vauxhall/Opel version of the VB Commodore? The steering is utter rubbish - it feels worse than a sloppy HZ box. The Aussie rack & pinion was a huge improvement - which improved again with the VL when the rack was further updated. And the IRS under them is nothing to write home about. How bad was the VQ IRS? Where do you think the Holden design evolved from? It was already an improvement on the Opel IRS.....

Even nearly 40 years on people still bring up the same unfounded pub drivel to criticise the VB Commodore, yet the humble VB underpinnings lived on for 22 years of production - longer than the Kingswood badge hung around for. Guess there's some people who will never accept that Holden actually built decent cars after 1977 (as the sales records and COTY awards prove), just like there's some who consider anything after an EH to be a pile of crap....

Yes, look at a Senator & it does looks similar to a Rekord or Commodore, but an HSV GTS looks similar to a Commodore Executive too. As I said the Senator was a prestige model, which was much more expensive than any Rekord or Commodore & was built to compete again higher end M/Benzs & BMWS.

You seem to prefer these high revving low torque overhead cam style engines. As I said early many Aussies prefer the high torque lower revving engines. The biggest complaint of the VL 3.0 when it was released was, "sure it's smooth & economical & great on the freeway, but off the lights it was only as good as a 173 Red motor". As rough as the VN onwards V6 engine onwards was, it became a top seller because of that low-down torque which was instantly on tap.

OK, many consider the Red motors (6 & V8) to be boat anchors, but they served us well for 2 decades. Look where the max torque is:- 2000-2500 rpm, not 4200-4800 rpm like the 3.0L Opel 6. You do know that the 3.0L Opel 6 is an LH Torana 1900 donk with 2 cylinders added, don't you ?

My sidekick at work actually owns an Opel Monza which he imported in RHD form from the UK. It is 1984 (update model) with the 3.0L CIH engine & a Getrag 5-sp gearbox. As commodorenut has said with it's old style steering box (which is not even advanced as the Bendix-Bishop variable box fitted to HQ-WB) it's nowhere near as good to drive as the same era Aussie version.

I think that many onlookers (like yourself) don't have a full grasp of how much work GM-H did to the Opel to make it a good car, on such a limited budget in such a comparatively small market such as ours.

Dr Terry

Edited by user Saturday, 18 March 2017 7:54:35 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

I may be just one of the most informed people of how the VB Commodore was created and came to be. fact is it was not as advanced as the Opel at all, in Australia Holden had to be competitive with the Falcon mainly and you see this all through the years and the cost of the IRS would not of cut it with the bean counters at the time, fact is the Opel was more advanced and it had IRS and a EFI engine.
We are in a Australia and had to make this car work for our conditions.

We have base model 2.85L and right up to the SL/E 5.0L and as for Merc and BMW they are not as expensive in Europe as they are here.

I do like low down torque engines and that's why I mainly drive V8's but if you look at the 3.3L EFI vs the 3.0L in the VL I do like the 3.3L EFI and auto to drive better around town but the 5sp manual and VL 3.0L is much better to drive than the auto. most of the poms drive manual's and they love there small engines and fuel cost more than it does here.

The VB Commodore was a great car and we got the rack and pinion and it even out handled the BMW at the time. the VB steering was a bit of a bastard as the initial part when driving straight ahead on the highway took a bit more effort than it should of but apart from that it was fine.

Nothing wrong with the Opel 1.9L engine it just cost more than a Holden 6 to recondition and any road the 1.9L + 2 = 2.85L but any road it were better than our moon glow 4.

The Commodore got IRS in the VN and it got EFI in the VK so yes the Opel was a more advanced car, but that does not mean it was a better car in every way especially for Australians at the time.

Statesman and the Kingswood are based on the same car, the VL vs VB is the same car, sure there are different in some ways.

Look at all the test when the VC came out, the RTS was changed because people could not drive well enough to take advantage of what Peter Hannenberger did, so they introduced understeer for the fools, VB-C almost identical you say but not the same and I am not on about old worn out or crap examples.

Opel IRS is where it evolved from and sure we adapted it to ours and when the VX came out we adapted what Opel did to stop the toe in, as did the VT GTS setup.
The VQ Statesman IRS was good only for the ride not handling.

COTY awards well well well what have we got here.

From the EH on is where it all becomes ok for me, before that they were real slugs and just totally boring to drive.

When the HZ WB came out they sure did handled grate, but nowadays when you get a wheel alignment most use a different setup that turns it into a shit box like a HX and they do this new settings because they don't understand why Peter Hannenberger set it up that way in the first place, so they set it up for dip sticks who can't drive for shit, bringing back that dreadful understeer that only incompetent drivers love. the same with the VC RTS it makes the car understeer so a incompetent driver will back off, now they do drive well on the highway, but if you get out of control on highway and try to get it back on the road again good luck, and it's the same up to the VS commodore.
With the VB especially the V8's this is a car you can do anything with because you have the power to control it with the throttle, here read Wheels Oct 1978 what Peter Hannenberger is pointing out to Bill Tuckey, poor old Bill has not got a clue what Peter is explaining to him in depth at all and Peter throws the car off into a spin, progressing at speeds leading all the way up to 210KM/H and Peter says all cars must do this ! so you can regain control.

People think IRS makes a car handle better it does not at all, it only works to improve the ride, unless it's real advanced like a Porsche 928 rear end setup, but it's an expensive to go that far advanced.
I had a dude claim his Datsun 200B would out handle a VB Commodore because it had IRS.

If not it is the adjacent studio in the same building, the Tech Centre I believe. Same HT buck I believe. Here is another image of the same building:

http://www.hrc.org.au/images/Memories/Noel%20Bedford/seating%20buck%202.jpg

That is not an XA Falcon in 1965. It is a cancelled design for the HQ. It has HQ on the windscreen. How the XA came to look like that is a mystery, but one we hope to solve later this year.

Castellan, there was dozens of foundry's in Sydney alone who had the ability to cast engine blocks and heads from the 1920's on. I would be really surprised if Holden didn't have their own in-house foundry's.
GMH definitely had the machinery and tooling to machine a raw castings to a finished machined product from the beginning (pre 1948).
Your mates 200b probably didn't has IRS anyway unless it was one of the fully imported 200b SSS coupes which were relatively rare. The 1600 and 180b did but Datsun Australia took a backward step with 200b.