General Motors New Zealand

General Motors New Zealand
FormerlyHolden New Zealand
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryAutomotive
Founded4 January 1926 (1926-01-04)
Headquarters
Ellerslie, Auckland
,
New Zealand
Key people
Marc Ebolo
(Managing director)
ProductsAutomobiles
Brands
Number of employees
35 (July 2016)
ParentGeneral Motors

General Motors New Zealand Limited, formerly Holden New Zealand Limited, is a subsidiary of General Motors that distributes GM' motor vehicles, engines, components and parts in New Zealand.

This company was incorporated on 4 January 1926 to build and operate a local assembly plant in New Zealand. It was General Motors' first owned, not leased overseas plant. The plant began with the assembly of American GM vehicles – Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick and Oldsmobile, followed by British Vauxhalls five years later. Following World War II, British sourced Vauxhalls continued to keep the plant running together with limited numbers (restricted by currency shortages) of Chevrolets and Pontiacs. Buick and Oldsmobile were dropped. In the late 1950s the Vauxhall, Chevrolet and Pontiac cars began to be replaced with Australian-sourced Holdens and the move to the Holden brand was completed in the 1970s.

The assembly of vehicles ended in 1990 and thereafter the business became a distributor of complete imported GM vehicles and spare parts, mainly from Australia and Korea. General Motors began withdrawing from right-hand drive markets in 2017, leaving the United Kingdom, Japan, India and Thailand over the next three years.

With Holden new-car sales in its home country nose-diving to just 4.1 per cent of the Australian market by the end of 2019, General Motors announced on 17 February 2020 that it would be retiring the Holden brand and pulling out of the last remaining right-hand-drive markets. It also announced that GM's right-hand-drive assembly plant in Thailand had been sold to Great Wall Motor.[1][2][3][4]

As of 2022 General Motors New Zealand consists of three business groups, GM Specialty Vehicles (GMSV), Isuzu trucks, and Holden Aftersales.[5]

  1. ^ "Holden exits Australia". www.msn.com.
  2. ^ "Announcement | Holden Australia". Holden. Retrieved 17 February 2020.
  3. ^ 'Death of the Holden Commodore – The final autopsy' Date: 14 December 2019, URL: https://www.caradvice.com.au/814216/death-of-the-holden-commodore-the-final-autopsy/ (Car Advice Australia)
  4. ^ 'General Motors axes Holden operations in New Zealand' Date: 17 February 2020, Author: Damien O'Carroll, URL: https://stuff.co.nz/motoring/119584452/general-motors-axes-holden/ (Stuff NZ)
  5. ^ New Zealand on GM website