These days only one small car is made in Australia, the Holden Cruze. Sadly even it will disappear from the factory floor in 2017 because the Cruze has been caught up in the chaos caused by the sudden loss of buyer interest in large cars.
Though it’s a global design and built in many factories worldwide under a variety of names, there’s a lot of GM-Holden design in the cruze. Australians were involved in styling, engineering, suspension trials and many other smaller facets of the car.
Not to give in, Holden has introduced numerous changes for the model year 2015 Cruze.
Holden Cruze has a bold new front end and now uses Light Emitting Diodes (LED) in the daytime Daytime Running Lights (DRLs). These are a useful safety measure, particularly when the weather is dull.
Cruze Equipe and SRi have a new design of 17-inch alloy wheels. The exterior mirrors now have integrated blinker repeater lamps rather than separate lights on the front guards.
Cruze SRi-V has even larger alloy wheels, at 18 inches. It also gets automatic wipers, suede seat inserts and remote start. Holden tells us this allows “customers to start the car remotely and use the air conditioning to cool, or heat the car before getting in”.
Sorry Holden. But we strongly disagree with this, for safety reasons no one should be starting a car unless a driver is in the front-right seat.
Satellite navigation with voice command and live traffic updates has been introduced to the Cruze CDX.
Holden’s Director of Marketing, Bill Mott, said that the changes for 2015 demonstrated Holden’s ongoing commitment to producing technologically advanced, good looking and, above all, great value vehicles.
“The new front fascia and grille give the car an athletic, modern look and the added features make Cruze a compelling package in the small car class.,” Mr Mott said.
The 2015 Holden Cruze is on sale now.
