I Ran to the Holden Head Office

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They used to have a display of old concepts and prototypes there. I’ve seen them before, and you can see some cars in there on Google Maps’ pics from 2019. No longer.

I figured with Holden’s death (which pip reminded me of recently) they would eventually be moved - Port Melbourne might be a good spot for a head office but it seemed an unlikely place to remain as a Holden museum. Anyway, it would seem I’m too late. It’s still a Holden building and it wasn’t completely empty, but it was devoid of cars. How sad.

Illustration for article titled I Ran to the Holden Head Office

I’ll drop some pics below of what used to live here. Anyway the run was good, covered about 32km from Kew to Port Melbourne, to Princes Pier and back again. Beautiful sunny day, fairly warm for Winter in Melbourne. Here are some more pics from the day.

This is the spot at which a Mclaren F1 was once shot. I credit pip for this also since he recently posted about the car, which led to me finding the photo of it here, which led to me standing here taking this one.

Takes a keen eye to spot the difference between the SV and the regular Murcie.

Sandridge Beach, cool to see a beach so close to the city. Spirit of Tasmania and Princes Pier in the background

Here are some pics from last time I was at the Holden head office, same day as the French car festival I once posted about. Even though nobody on Oppo really cares about Holden except me and pip. I’ve seen some of these cars before, at motor shows back in the day or other exhibits, but it was still super cool to see them just parked up like they’re not multi-million-dollar 1-of-1 pieces of history, especially in such a public setting.

Holden Coupe concept based on the VT, ended up as the VX-based Monaro. Marilyn concept next to it, a convertible Monaro.

Coupe 60 - a concept of a coupe based on the newer VE Commodore. Named for Holden’s 60th Anniversary, unbeknownst that 13 years later they’d be dead and gone

Torana GTR-X, an old concept for a coupe

Left to right: Efijy concept, HRT427 (one of two), SSX a weird V8 hatchback based on VY

Won’t be the same without you, Holden.