With the cessation of both Ford and Holden’s Australian-production, it’s a sad time for the Ford Falcon and Holden Commodore — full-size rear-wheel drive icons on our half of the globe.
The Commodore’s successor, the NG series, has been revealed to be a rebadged Opel Insignia — a nice and capable, albeit somewhat boring, family saloon devoid of the character that made its predecessors genuinely interesting vehicles.
However, as uninspiring as the new range looks, the same can’t be said of official renderings of the 2018 Commodore Supercar. It’s got all the aero you’d expect, and actually looks pretty badass in full race trim, and it is said that the race version will retain a traditional V8 engine, initially. The decision to homologate the V8 engine is to allow further development of a twin-turbo V6 engine, which it aims to trial in a few races during the 2018 Supercars Championship series before officially introducing it in 2019. However, until then, it looks like the V8 Commodore isn’t quite dead!
The new Holden Commodore will go on sale in Australia in early 2018. Most will be powered by two-litre four cylinder petrol and diesel engines, with the flagship model powered by an uprated version of Holden’s existing 3.6-litre V6 and all-wheel drive. With adaptive suspension, nine-speed automatic transmission, and technology, a company-first nine-speed automatic transmission and torque-vectoring, what the new Commodore lacks in brute force it makes up for in technical sophistication.
