MELBOURNE: IN the eternal battle between Ford and Holden, there can be only one winner.
And on the Fraser Coast, that winner is Holden with the great Aussie battler’s Commodore the most popular model of car in the region.
Garry Knight, owner of a stunning 1977 Holden GTS Monaro, said his whole family loves Holden cars.
“I don’t call my car ‘a car’, I call it a toy,” he said.
“I love cruising in it and showing it off to people. Everyone is always talking about Holden cars and I’m a proud owner of a couple of them.”
Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads data shows that of the 97,800 vehicles registered here, 4837 are Commodores.
Ford, however, is not far behind with the Falcon in second place with 4454 cruising around the region.
Graeme Legg is such a die-hard fan, he has even nicknamed his one of a kind 1971 Yellow Ford 351 XYGT.
“I call mine the Bumble Bee. This car is only one of three in the world in this colour,” he said.
“I’m definitely a fan of the Ford. I’ve had mine for two years and only take it out when it’s not raining,” he said.
Mr Legg said the car would probably cost the same as a house and he has no plans of selling it any time soon.
Toyota, which is the area’s most popular make of car, comes in third place on the model ladder with 3086 LandCruisers calling the region home.
Toyota’s HiLux is the fourth most popular model with 2390 registered here and its Camry (2101) comes in fifth place
The Toyota Corolla (1299), Nissan Navara (1260), Holden Rodeo (1242), Nissan Patrol (1236) and the Mitsubishi Lancer (1058) round out the top 10.
RACQ technical and safety policy executive manager Steve Spalding said Ford and Holden might have been slow off the starting grid when it came to matching customer needs but they were producing vehicles that could take on import giant Toyota.
“In terms of their loyal followers, it really is simply a red or a blue car and there is no second choice,” Mr Spalding said.
“They are building top-quality vehicles – they’re well-featured, they’re safe and they’re very capable vehicles but unfortunately the market has moved away from large vehicles and that’s been happening for some time.
“To some extent, Holden and Ford have been slow to respond to that market shift.”
Mr Spalding said moving production overseas could improve the market share of Holden and Ford.
“Once they become a full importer, there’s no reason why they can’t rejig their product range to match any major brands,” he said.
