The truth about the 'last' Holden ever built

General Motors says the 2017 Commodore SS-V Redline sedan widely touted as the last Holden to be produced in Australia ahead of its auction this weekend is not the final homegrown Commodore at all.

Less than 24 hours before the online Lloyds auction ends at about 2:00pm tomorrow (January 30), bidding for the vehicle in question had stalled at $255,000 – well below the million-dollar mark some pundits had predicted.

Controversy has surrounded the last car actually produced by Holden since GM closed its factory doors in October 2017, when Holden said the final Commodore would be retained by the company – which now trades as GM Specialty Vehicles in Australia – for display purposes.

While the last car to roll off Holden’s Elizabeth production line in Adelaide’s north now resides at the National Motor Museum in Birdwood, South Australia, in May 2020 a magazine article revealed that a near-identical Commodore was in fact the last to be ‘framed up’, painted and allocated a vehicle identification number (VIN).

That Red Hot SS-V is the car that’s now for sale via Lloyds and was originally tracked down and purchased before it reached a Melbourne dealership by a savvy ex-Holden worker Alex Kyriakopoulos.

According to WhichCar, Kyriakopoulos was told by an engineer following the send-off for Holden factory staff in late 2017 that the last Commodore to receive a VIN (333644) had been allocated to a dealer but was not yet sold to a customer.

Kyriakopoulos located the dealer (Booran Holden in Dandenong), negotiated the sale by phone before it had even arrived there, and asked the salesman to leave the delivery stickers and plastic protective wrapping on the vehicle.

It now wears the number plate FINL-01 and has just 102km on the clock.

Now, in a statement to carsales, GM has confirmed the final Holden ever produced is the same Red Hot SS-V Redline with black roof that was presented with a ‘Last Car’ sign in a factory ceremony on October 20, and that it remains on display at Birdwood.

“The Commodore on loan to the National Motor Museum in South Australia was the last car that ran down the General Assembly line and is not for sale,” said GM.

“The vehicle (VIN ending 333542) is on display in the National Motor Museum in Birdwood SA and was the last vehicle to come off the end of the General Assembly line late morning of 19th October 2017 and was celebrated in the employee and media event on 20th October 2017.

“It was the last body to enter the General Assembly plant and go down the assembly line receiving all of its components via the standard production process.

“The car which is currently being auctioned (VIN ending 333644) was the last body to leave the Bodyshop and enter/exit the Paintshop – not to come off the General Assembly line itself.

“Therefore, and very importantly from a heritage perspective, the vehicle in the National Motor Museum in Birdwood SA (VIN ending 333542) is absolutely the last Holden.”

So the last of the 7,687,675 vehicles made in Australia by Holden is safe, secure and on display Down Under – for now – and it remains to be seen how much the ‘other’ final Commodore changes hands for tomorrow.