If ever more proof were needed that the National Fieldays, coming up this week at Mystery Creek in Hamilton, were essential a default New Zealand motor show – but one where a huge amount of selling was actually done – then Holden New Zealand have provided it by managing to set up one of those most rare of things – a visit to New Zealand by a concept car that has been doing the rounds of various international events.
The Holden Colorado Xtreme was first shown at the Bangkok motor show (as a Chevrolet Colorado) back in April, before heading off to Spain for the GM Grand Masters (an event for GM dealers worldwide, including New Zealand).
The Xtreme was designed and built in Holden’s Melbourne design studio – the only GM studio outside of Detroit capable of designing and building a concept completely in-house – and was on its way home to go on display there before it was intercepted by Holden NZ for an appearance at the Fieldays this week.
“Holden is incredibly proud to have the new Colorado Xtreme on display in New Zealand, as this is only the second occasion after the Bangkok Auto Show that it’s ever been on public display,” said the Managing Director of Holden New Zealand, Kristian Aquilina.
“Show vehicles often have eye-watering price tags and whilst I’m not going to put a number on this particular model, I can confidently say it’s likely to be the most expensive Holden model to ever land in New Zealand.”
While Holden are talking up the Xtreme as a pure concept vehicle, it is actually pretty much the forthcoming revamped Colorado with an extreme (sorry) of accessories, a large number of which will be available for the new Colorado when it arrives in showrooms later this year.
“We know that it’s important for our customers to be able to accessorise and personalise their vehicles, especially in this segment,” said Holden NZ’s national product planning manager, Ina Economopoulos.
“So for this project we took accessories into consideration from the start – for the new model and this concept.”
Economopoulos went on to say that around 70 percent of accessories on the Xtreme concept would be available for the production Colorado that will launch locally in September.
The speed with which Holden has seen fit to perform a significant upgrade on the Colorado is yet another sure sign that the ute market has had its goal post significantly shifted in the past several year, something that initially caught the company by surprise when it launched a new Colorado in 2012 that was clearly aimed at taking on the venerable Hilux, when others in the segment had far surpassed that mark.
“If you want an example of a company – Holden – really responding to customer feedback, then you need not look any further than the upcoming Colorado,” said Kristian Aquilina.
“We’re essentially four years into that car’s lifecycle, and that’s fairly early in a generation of vehicle for General Motors to take the decision to invest quite heavily into what is considered a mid-life enhancement.
“The customer expectations of what used to be exclusively a piece of agricultural equipment has changed incredibly rapidly in this market.”
Aquilina went on to say something that we all know anyway, which was that many buyers were now using utes as a substitute for the traditional family car or SUV, yet the ute still has to be a tough truck, while also providing the comfort and equipment of those cars or SUVs.
“When it comes to this mid-cycle enhancement, we think we’re on the money,” said Aquilina.
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