The iconic car maker Holden, whose history dates back to 1856, when James Alexander Holden started as a saddlery business in Adelaide, announced that it will stop making vehicles by the end of this year.
When I arrived here, Holden employed over twenty thousand people in Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia, and their six- and eight-cylinder cars were top sellers. Twenty-six years later, in 1991, Toyota outsold Holden for the first time, and by 2006 Holden's market share had fallen to 15.2 percent. Make that zero percent for next year!
So what about the rest? Football is still a national sport but has fallen into third place after welfare fraud and tax evasion, meat pies are probably already outsold by dumplings, and at some point in the future we may have to visit Taronga Zoo to see a live kangaroo, judging by all the dead ones you see along our highways.
For a bit of nostalgia, grab a Four'N'Twenty (if you can still find one!), fasten your seatbelts and watch the Holden Story Part 1 and Part 2.
