Holden announces Sportwagon line-up
January 21, 2008 by George Skentzos
Holden has released official details of its VE Sportwagon line-up due to arrive in the first half of 2008.
Specifications and model variants will be in line with the VE sedan range, with the exception of rear park assist, which will be fitted to all Sportwagon models as standard.
“We’ve expanded our wagon range from the three variants we had at VZ, to an impressive seven VE variants to ensure there’s a Sportwagon for everyone.”
The Sportwagon range now includes Omega, Berlina and Calais, plus the sporty SV6, SS and the range topping SS-V and Calais V models.
VE Sportwagon Model and Powertrain Line-up:
- Omega Alloytec V6 with 4 speed auto transmission
- Berlina Alloytec V6 with 4 speed auto transmission
- SV6 High Output Alloytec V6 with 5 speed auto transmission
- SS Gen 4 V8 with 6 speed manual transmission or Gen 4 V8 with 6 speed automatic transmission (optional)
- SS V-Series Gen 4 V8 with 6 speed manual transmission or Gen 4 V8 with 6 speed automatic transmission (optional)
- Calais High Output Alloytec V6 with 5 speed auto transmission
- Calais V-Series High Output Alloytec V6 with 5 speed auto transmission or Gen 4 V8 with 6 speed automatic transmission (optional)
All Sportwagon models will feature ESP as standard, with driver, front passenger, curtain and side impact airbags available on all models.
Zone-based front and rear park assist, a roof-mounted DVD system, integrated sat nav and Bluetooth are also available on selected models.
The production version of the VE Sportwagon will be unveiled at the 2008 Melbourne International Motor Show, starting 29 February.
Print it: 
I like it!! But with no gas or Diesel versions they can’t claim with a straight face that there’s a choice for everyone… can they?????
australia’s own quintessential hothatch !(in ss format at least)
Bavarian Missile will chide me, but I could still do one of these in Morpheous, Lcat!
Yes, gas and diesel would give great choice.
So we pimping it for you the Golfschwein?????
I know we can put a bar in the back with mirror tiles and red crushed velvet lined interior…….some where to store the Baileys babe! I could see us lying in the back tail gate open
watching Skyworks Saturday night on the foreshore…..hahaha
Prices?
Like the release dates, time to spoil Fords party!
Cheers
F-0
What no diesel.. Now there’s progress for a company who can’t shift its cars. I just can’t see how Holden can seriously stay in business when their trump card does not offer what the people want. Wish we could have this in Euroland, Vauxhall would have a diesel in it here.
Bazilian Missile: there’s plenty of room in the back can I come as well to watch the fireworks!!!
the promo email i recieved said that the sv6 would be coming out in a manual aswell but no mention about dod fuel saving
What line up is there to announce???
Really…whoever thought it wasn’t going to be more of the same Commodore had another thing coming.
Ok, its a good looking Wagon if i’ve ever seen one but its still a Commodore…It’s all marketing hype on their end…
And Frugal One…don’t count on Holden raining in on Fords Orion Launch…an all new Model VS a Wagon thats taken almost 2 Years to launch after the sedan is ridiculous…SS wagons were available in the VY and sold well…nothing is really that new here
It was pretty well documented at VE’s release that releasing the wagon simultaneously would have stretched Holden’s engineering resources.
That’s completely believable. It seems that Ford is likely to do the same thing. The BF wagon is probably going to soldier on with its leaf springs for a while yet. That’s sad. The old argument that the leaf springs are best for load carrying doesn’t cut it in 2008. Everyone else has found a b-e-t-t-e-r w-a-y. How much cheaper are these things to churn out compared to a Control Blade rear suspension? There’s your real reason.
And don’t forget Ford couldn’t be bothered with an EA to EL ute. They just grafted a new EL-style nose onto the old XD ute and van and got 19 years out of it.
Diesel is the devil’s gas. Plus it produces more cancer causing toxin’s then petrol. Once the direct injection and HCCI motors come on board there will be no reason for stupid diesel. for penny pincher’s there should shortly be a 2 mode hybrid version.
Craig you’re patheticaly ignorant. Diesel is not significantly more toxic to petrol. Actually the exhaust particles from petrol are microscopically smaller than diesel particles and penetrate the lungs further. Yes a diesel engine produces more Nitrous oxide in its early years which is accountable for Acid rain.
Have you ever heard of stage 2 vapour recovery. Nope doubt it. Well for you information the vapour escaping from petrol fumes whilst your filling your guzzling ineficient petrol car are in fact Cacogenic. Hence the need to recover them to prevent you getting cancer.
But hey what do I care whilst your spending more on your fuel bill and therefore contributing to the governments coffers that can only mean one thing..I pay less. Carry on living in ignorance.
just noticed something folks. Open up the first photo to fullsize and have butchers at the panels gaps round the bonnet/hood. They’re all over the shop. The Koreans could do better than that. Sloppy, especially for a presentation car.
You’re right there, No Name. That’s one heck of a jpeg and it highlights the bonnet fitment woes. Could it just be the angle of the dangle, I wonder? Fitment might be perfect from other angles, but you do wonder.
Incredibly, this is a long, long way from Holden’s and Ford’s worst. Panel fit by both manufacturers was truly, consistently shocking all the way up to the late eighties. There are lots of ways to bag Korean cars, but panel fit isn’t one of them.
My Golf isn’t perfect in this regard and neither is the Rolls Royce Phantom on the cover of my February 2003 issue of CAR. That was also a pre-production presentation car.
Pity there will never be a VE diesel Adventra. Out here in the country, they would sell well.
Agree with you The Stig!
Hey can i ask anybody! Would any of you rather own a SS V wagon or buy thre sedan SS V
Never mind the Holden based variants- where is an HSV version…?
Yeah! That would be cool! A HSV GTS Wagon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Frugal One,
I don’t see how it will spoil Fords party when it’s only a wagon and it was already shown at the Sydney International Motor Show in Oct 07.
What, perchance, is the safety rating on these things?
I honestly haven’t heard them. If it was 5-stars, surely they’d be crowing about it?
Duck, I’d do the wagon in a flash, something that I wouldn’t have done with the previous generation. As hearses go, the VT-VZ was good looking, but I think Holden’s on the money when they say that they’re going to snare more private buyers with this one.
Thats why i am asking people! Like personaly id rather own a wagon.
The calais should defonatley have pine veneer for sure!
It will add to the luxury.
7 styles of wagon thats very broad i wonder if they will scale back because surely not all 7 will be popular?
No Name, i don’t think Craig Simpson has heard of the word “Benzine” that stuff is really nasty, just google it and see for your self Craig…. the only cars that don’t release Co2 or any other toxins are the 100 BMW hydrogen internal combustion v12 engines (just to prove that green can be powerfull).
That would be my preference over diesels any day, but until our governments get the guts to mandate hydrogen (made from sea water using solar, wind or even tidal energy)then diesel will still be a better option than than unleaded petrol!!!
Also in Sydney we have a fleet of Natural gas buses but we are not allowed to run our cars on the much cheaper and cleaner stuff because we need to sell it to Japan for 2 cents a litre…
i wonder how many Swiss bank acounts are being feathered with that deal????
Tom the ANCRAP Safety rating won’t be known until just after the Wagon is released.. as the one in the pics is only a prototype/showcar.. built purely to get an idea of what the actual production car could/will look like
However; if Crash tests are that important to you you might want to chat to Mikka as he is also a big fan of such tests as well as surveys; and other manipulated statistics/figures. He’d know,
The sedan gets 4 stars because Holden didn’t want to donate a car for the side-intrusion pole test that could have earned it 5 stars. Apparently.
If I was Holden, I’d just say, “here, have one”
Can anybody tell me if i am right or wrong?
Didnt HOLDEN make a SS or/and a S VY Commodore Wagon?
Dear Mr “Frugal-one”. Grow up and go back to your Holden forum. How will it spoil Ford’s party? we don’t even know what the new Falcon even looks like. but we already know what the Commodore wagon looks like, are you blind?
Oz.,
I wouldnt call Fruagal One a ford person cause his not his a…………………. Mazda CX-7 person…remember!
I was wrong, “Freckle-one” doesn’t like Ford or Holden he loves Toyotas, Looks at Landcruser posts, HE LOVES THEM!
Duck – Holden made a very limited run [less than 500] of SS Wagons in the Previous model; inorder to help shift stock before the new VE assembly line [which took almost half of the billion dollar budget] was brought on line.
Oz – From what I have read on this website Frugal One doesn’t like cars at all.. I mean he only has negative things to say about every make and model.. which makes me wonder what the hell is he doing on this website
Hey Wheelnut,
Have GM decided if they are going to build the monaro and/or torana and where?
Bob Lutz announced at the Detroit Motorshow that the Monaro has been “put on ice” for the time being – whilst the factory in Canada builds enough Camaros to meet the expected demand. So for no at least the Monaro is a No-Go
As for the Torana that is more of a certainty as Rick Waggoner has finally realised the world is leaning towards smaller mor compact cars. He also realised that its better for a company to build a range of cars based on one or two platforms [Alpha and Zeta] which also share various parts
So The Torana is more likely to get the Go Ahead particularly with the New G6 due in a couple of years.. Id expect Holden are doing R&D on it at the moment. As for where it will be built as yet that hasn’t been decided
It’s dissapointing that there not making the monaro but i guess it’s always an open option if holden does want to make it. I hope they build the torana in Australia, but if they do will the torana look the exactly the same as the pics on CarAdvice, because a few people say it looks to similar to the VE. And thats because the torana was designed before the VE Commy(i think) and holden got ideas and designs from the torana.
The TT-36 Torana Concept car was designed and built before the VE project had been finalised/completed – infact teh Concept Car has a number of features which are on the VE
As for what it will look like.. I expect it will look very similar to the Concept Car [Lutzy likes it] Yet on the front cover of a recent issue of Motor there is a CGI of a Torana A9-X Coupe which is based more on the Vectra [Insignia] which shares the Alpha platform of the TT-36
I hope that they make it here.. There’s enough room for another line at the rear of the Elizabeth facility.. It’s possible considering the Monaro is No More the plant in Canada will be making Camaros and GM are planning to close up to 4 other plants in the US.. Wait and see
Just found an article on http://www.autoblog.com/category/holden
Apparently GM Car Czar Bob Lutz has confirmed that a four-door ute concept based on Holden’s rear-wheel-drive Zeta platform [same as the VE] but wearing a GMC badge will debut at the New York Auto Show in late March. From Bob’s description, the vehicle is much like the Holden Crewman, which was a version of the Holden Ute with its wheelbase stretched to accommodate a second row of seats and two more doors (all-wheel-drive was also eventually an option).
The concept debuting in Detroit will be wearing very masculine GMC styling cues, however, and sounds as if it will be billed as a unibody pickup. This gives the GMC four-door ute a good shot at production since GM knows that demand for trucks in the future has to be satisfied with vehicles that are more fuel efficient than body-on-frame trucks.
A recent spate of unibody truck concepts like the Toyota A-BAT Concept and Ford Explorer America Concept show that automakers are very interested in switching to lighter unibody platforms for vehicles that have traditionally been truck-based.
Lutz also points out the obvious upside that if the GMC four-door ute is popular with the public, it can be sold in Australia as Holden’s replacement for the Crewman, which wasn’t updated along with the rest of the Ute lineup last year.
So Maybe the Crewamn isn’t dead afterall
People thought that the crewman will be dead! Ha! Yes i hope they do continue to build the crewman, and i’ve seen the GMC Crewman on the website (thanks wheelnut) but i hope that they don’t make the crewman to look exactly like that. And the Torana Coupe that was pictured on the MOTOR mag, issue January with orange looked teriffic!
Wheelnut,
You know how holden made the crewman (VY). Well do you that ford came up with the idea first with the R5 Concept!
Yep, I’ve seen a few articles on the R5. Shame it didn’t go into production like the Crewman.
yep the R5 was a great concept. i thought at one point they were taking orders on it but after the thought it might be too expensive they canned the idea of producing it.
it was one hell of a practical 2 door ute. ford put lots of thought into it and some of the ideas in it has only just surfaced again in the form of the toyota A-BAT concept
wow this would make a great driftmachine, for D1 or something like that, to show an aussie brand for drifting. just imagine a station wagon drifting!!! time to buy one and preping it as a race machine!