The commotion has settled down a little bit over the Holden VE Commodore launch, so now its time to actually sit down and see what these cars are made out of. Firstly, I thought I’d start with the bread and butter car, the Holden Commodore Omega. As I mentioned previously, the Omega runs on Holden’s not so new Alloytec 3.6L V6, producing peak power of 180kW and peak torque of 330Nm up 8kW and 10Nm from the VZ Commodore. The Omega is mated to an ancient four-speed automatic transmission system.
The Omega starts at $34,490. That’s $500 more than the previous base model Commodore. However the VE Omega fails to come with some basic options, one of them is Air-Conditioning. Yes, the Holden Commodore VE comes standard without Aircon. Well done Holden. Furthermore, the Omega doesn’t come with a spare ($100 more for that). Now if I, painfully, put myself in the shoes of a potential Commodore buyer, why on earth would I pay $34,500 for a car which not only fails to come with Air Conditioning, but also uses more fuel than a better a Subaru Impreza RX or the Toyota Corolla which not only costs less but probably loses less value in depreciation as well!?
Nevertheless for those potential Commodore buyers Holden has put together what it likes to call a “value pack“. For an extra $500 you get Air Conditioning, 17″ alloys, a spoiler and body coloured door handles. So essentially, the Omega doesn’t cost $34,490, but instead it really costs $34,990 since no one will buy that car without Air Con. At least the value pack doesn’t cost too much. I can’t say I understand why Holden wouldn’t either just take the price up to $35,000 to begin with or just stick with $34,490 and sell the car with Air Con (but without the alloys and spoiler).
Holden claims that the new VE model is better value for money since it comes with an Electronic Stability Program, which as many other companies (e.g. Hyundai) like to keep pointing out has been standard on their cars for some time. Currently Holden refuses to give detail on the Commodore’s fuel consumption, but given that it uses the same Alloytec V6 engine found in the previous model, I’d expect the figures to be roughly the same at around 11L/100km combined city and highway driving.
Holden lists the following exterior highlights for the new Omega:
- Twin reflector headlamps with gloss black bezels
- Signature aero grille blade in charcoal finish
- Full body colour bumper fascia with three-port lower openings
- 16-inch styled wheel covers
- Sporty low gloss black finish to mirror and door opening surround
- Grab-style door handles in matching low gloss black
- Side fender vent with integrated side repeater lamp
- Body colour lower rocker skirt
- High tech tail lamps with clear red outer lens over bright styled bezel
- Laser welded two-piece, all metal decklid
- Two-piece rear fascia with black lower accent insert, incorporating reflectors
- Single round exhaust outlet
Interior Highlights are listed below:
- ‘Down and away’ instrument panel, flush centre stack and a horizontal decorative appliqué and door armrests, provide a feeling of expansiveness
- The serpentine plan view of the instrument panel provides spaciousness while presenting centre stack controls within comfortable reach
- Woodgrain interpreted in line with modern interior and architectural trends (Berlina)
- Storage includes large glovebox, armrest underside with clips for pens and cards. Console has a trinket tray and dual cup holders. Front and rear door trims have bins for drink bottles
- Omega instrument cluster includes a central vertical-format dot matrix screen, augmented by a high-mounted five-inch monochrome display
- Berlina adds two auxiliary cluster displays. Centre screen relocated, enlarged to 5.5-inches
- Green illumination
The new range of Commodores now come in the choice of 13 colours, so the plain old boring white Commodores might finally be a thing of the pat? Holden claims that the 7 new Colours are a result of Innovative technology, which allowed the Colour and Trim team to design dynamic bright, fresh and sophisticated new colours. The hero colour for the new Commodore is ignition.
New Colours:
- Ignition – chromatic red orange with fine mica gold highlight
- Evoke – smoky metallic charcoal with coloured mica highlight
- Sandstorm – warm neutral satin gold metallic with fine icy highlight
- Provence – chromatic light glacial blue metallic
- Red Passion – rich saturated metallic red with blue/red velvety mica highlight
- Nickel – mechanical dark silver with coarse metallic highlight
- Crema – crisp, buttery liquid gold with velvety mica appearance (available soon)
Carryover colours:
- Vespers – dark inky blue metallic
- Odyssey – darker, technical silver metallic
- Heron – solid white
- Impulse – bright chromatic brilliant blue
- Phantom – metallic black with silver highlights
- Redhot – highly chromatic solid red
However Holden doesn’t mention if these colours will be available for all the Commodore range, I only presume that this is the case.
Dimensions of the Commodore Omega are below – they are compared to the out going VZ Model:
- Overall length 4894mm + 18mm
- Wheelbase 2915mm + 126mm
- Front overhang 846mm – 90mm
- Front wheels Forward 67mm
- Rear overhang 133mm – 18mm
- Rear wheels Rearward 59mm
- Track width front 1602mm + 33mm
- Track width rear 1618mm + 41mm
- Height 1476mm + 20mm
- Width (excluding mirrors) 1899mm + 57mm
- Trunk capacity 496 ISO litres + 31 litres
