FE Holden - colour cinema commercial (1956)

[shipo3]

Brings back some memories, FE Holden was my first car in 1972 and passed my drivers license in same..Bloody good car I thrashed the guts out of it and couldn't kill the old girl.

[PanAm812]

smooth riding, luxurious and powerful

American car. We're all being shoe horned into those ugly SUVs or crappy little tin cans that fold up in a wreck. Time for a

visit to Mecum Auto Auctions!

[PanAm812]

smooth riding, powerful American car anymore. We're all being shoe horned into

these crappy little tin cans which fold up in a wreck - Time for a visit to Mecum Auctions!

[PanAm812]

When I lived in Tucson, Arizona I saw an

EH (1964) Holden Special in someone's front yard. I have never seen another Holden in 25years living in the USA. Now I live in Australia and have my own 62 Lincoln over

here. I thought I remembered an ad years ago showing Holdens exported to Hawaii

around 1962. Most Aussies would never

know that Football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars started out as Baseball,

Hotdogs, Apple pie and Chevrolets!!

I'm really pissed off you can't buy a big, long, sm

[masterawesomeish]

@PanAm812 Holden's independent design for the first model was more of a similar appearance to a Hillman car, the GM commissioned a design based from a rejected Chevrolet prototype from the 1930's, The independent design was thus canned. Most of the cars in Australia were kit built American cars. It has alleged that Holden made the first hatchback when they modified the body of a Chevrolet.

[MattTheSaiyan]

Beautiful car, and the quality of the colour of the print is pretty good, too.

[Seattlecarnut]

I love the style of clothing men and women wore during the time.

[OlegKostoglatov]

The body reminds me of an Opel Cadet. A 6.5:1 compression ratio at 75 horsepower? That's low! Australia must have had bad gas back in the 50's, here the average car had 8:1 or better in 1956, with 100 horsepower on up. It has the same chrome and glitz of an American car of that era but smaller, at least they didn't paint them all battleship grey, black, or white, like the English sedan cars from back then.

[scarlebloke]

@OlegKostoglatov It was during the 1930s that cheaper British cars were mainly black. At the same time this advert was made British mass-market models were just as colourful.

[Aussiemarco]

A friend at college had one of these. It was so much fun to ride around in, until it broke down - which was just about 3 times a week! Great times, great memories!!

[fjbutch]

Give my left nut to have that sweetheart ... sigh !

[hebneh]

Actually, Holdens were sold in the USA for at least a brief period around 1960. Foreign car sales greatly increased in America in 1958 and '59, as many Americans rejected the huge and glitzy Detroit vehicles for smaller imported cars. So before the three American manufacturers introduced their own compact models for 1960, a bunch of European and Japanese cars were sold (primarily on the west coast) - and some Australian Holdens too.

[Seattlecarnut]

@hebneh Really? I didn't know that. I've never seen a Holden here in the USA.

[hebneh]

@Seattlecarnut I believe Holdens were sold in the USA as what were called "captive" imports, meaning that the parent company in America owned the foreign company that made them at home. So I assume GM dealers would've had them. This was only for a short time.

I've seen Holdens advertised in newspapers (either by car dealers, or in classified ads for used cars) in about 1960.

[blockheadface]

Ooh, 70 BHP and ball-type steering! :)

[HARRY53AUSM]

This would've been shown after we'd all first stood up for Her Majesty. (didn't we,

boyzzzz!)

[fjbutch]

@HARRY53AUSM  I remember that at the pictures ....

[squeekyrambler]

they never sold Holden here in the US but it looks a lot like a 1955 Chevrolet in the front. love the old films

[fjbutch]

The first Holden was actually conceived in Detroit - M. with the close eye of Australia back in the 40s. to eventually come up with ''Australia's own car''-48-215

[OLDS98]

They did recently. It was the Pontiac GTO and the Pontiac G8

[ramblergarage]

you are correct, I forgott about that.

[OLDS98]

No problem. We will be getting the Statesman/Caprice soon as the Chevrolet Caprice PPV( police vehicle)

[Mechknight73]

@squeekyrambler Although strangely, there are reports of Holdens getting to America as far back as 1967. What badge they were wearing would be the real question. Up until the late 70s, Holdens did take a lot of their styling cues from the US. Australia's version of the '57 Chevy is the EK and FB Holdens

[hebneh]

It's funny to hear this described as longer and larger, considering that the General Motors cars that the corporation was building at home in the USA at that time were immense objects about twice as long as a mere Holden.

[smurftums]

When you compare it to the FJ holden (which looked like a mutant Morris Minor), the FE not only was longer and wider, it looked it! A piece of trivia, the model shown is equipped for sale in the state of Victoria (it has red coloured indicators instead of the amber colour ones used in the rest of Australia at the time).

[Mechknight73]

@hebneh Actually, Holden were building Chevs right up until 1955. From then on, they only built Holdens

[Westyrulz]

Holy shit it's my car!!

[43210asdfghjkl]

Your car lasted this long?

Niiiiiiice!