Barina’s Aussie design influence continues

The Holden Barina light car will maintain a strong Australian connection when it launches in November with an exterior and interior design overhauled in General Motors’ Melbourne design studio.

The facelifted Barina was shown last night for the first time by Holden at a business media function at its Port Melbourne HQ, alongside a previously unsighted facelifted Trax small SUV and the undoubted star of the show, the Acadia seven-seat SUV that comes to Australia in 2018.

The original T300 Barina, introduced in late 2011, had a distinctive exterior and interior motorcycle-inspired look developed by Ondrej Koromhaz, a Czech-born designer who first worked at Holden Design in 2001.

Koromhaz designed the original Barina including its distinctive instrument cluster and headlights while based at GM’s Korean studios.

He has since returned to Melbourne but did not contribute to this facelift, which first broke cover at the New York motor show in March as a Chevrolet.

“The other guys wound him up; they said ‘we fixed it for you Ondrej’,” joked GM Australia Design director Richard Ferlazzo when the car was unveiled.

“At the time Ondrej did the original design the brief was to make it youthful,” continued Ferlazzo. “Which is why it had a motorcycle-inspired instrument cluster and things like that.

“It worked in some markets but not others, so we did another version of this facelift of this car for the China market a couple of years ago. So we have done two facelifts of this car; one for China and one for the globe.”

The Melbourne studio performed the facelift on behalf of Holden and Chevrolet, which sells this car as the Sonic and Aveo.

“We like projects like this because it stamps our fingerprints all over our product range,” said Ferlazzo.

“This is more mature in its execution and more mature in its interior. I think the motorcycle thing worked but there was time for a change.”

As well as the reshaped headlights and fascia that bring the Barina more into line with the current GM global look, there is also a new hood for the instrument cluster and a rearranged centre stack.

The Barina update, about which Holden was revealing no detail, will be welcomed by dealers as the current car’s sales are down 27.5 per cent year-on-year according to VFACTS.

It is only the eighth most popular model in the VFACTS light segment, managing less than half the sales of the leading Toyota Yaris.

Holden's facelifted Trax, which goes on sale next January and was revealed as a Chevrolet at the Chicago show in February, was also shown off last night. The design of the small SUV was overhauled in Korea and had little input from the Australian studio.

“I really like the proportion of this vehicle -- it is very nuggety,” said Ferlazzo. “But the first one was very blocky, especially around the nose.

“It was designed for different markets and covering different applications, but that was all fine-tuned on this version. You will find if you put them side-by-side that the engine hood swoops down much lower on the current model. And the font-end is a far more contemporary execution.

“It has LED signature lighting, projector headlamps and just a far more sculptural front-end. It suits the body much more than the old front-end does."

Ferlazzo described the interior as a “a huge leap on from the original”, pointing to the growing importance of the small SUV segment.

Trax sales are up 34.7 per cent year on year in Australia but it trails the class heavyweights, the Mazda CX-3 and Mitsubishi ASX, by thousands of sales.

While Holden isn’t discussing specifications for the Barina and Trax updates as yet, both cars will come with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto connectivity as part of the brand’s pledge to spread these features across virtually all its product range as quickly as possible.

“The connectivity is number one. Young people will not buy cars without connectivity and why would they?” asked Ferlazzo.

“You plug in and you’ve got your whole interface which is great. But overall this is a huge leap in interior, so I think this is going to shake things up.

“This one looks so different it’s almost a whole new car. It’s a good little package that needed a styling update and it got it.”