The iconic Holden brand to be no more

Fifty years later, in 1998, then prime minister John Howard echoed those words and described Holden as a remarkable company which had touched the lives of so many Australians.

But she's a beauty no more with parent company General Motors announcing plans to dump the brand in both Australia and New Zealand.

The decision has come just over two years after it closed its local car manufacturing operations and just months after it decided to retire the Commodore sedan and focus on sports utility models.

The move to close completely by 2021 will send further shockwaves around the nation, costing about 600 jobs across the two countries and impacting more than 200 dealers.

It will also have significant implications for other sectors, most notably motorsport with the company unlikely to still be racing beyond the current year.

Holden famously started production of "Australia's own car" in the post-war era with the launch 48-215, later known as the FX, in 1948.

Far better engineered to handle local conditions, it was an instant hit with buyers and by the time it was replaced by the FJ in 1953, Holden had sold more than 120,000.

The FJ was an even bigger success, with the company building almost 170,000, including 2500 that were shipped overseas, kick-starting an export program.

The company dominated the Australian car market throughout the 1950s and by 1958 a staggering 50 per cent of all registrations were Holdens.

Its workforce also swelled to almost 19,000, more than double the number it had employed 10 years earlier, before peaking at almost 24,000 in 1964.

Throughout the 1960s, Holden continued to lead the sales charge, but the competition was increasing from the likes of Ford, Chrysler and the first wave of Japanese cars.

The company released a steady stream of new models including the first Monaro coupe, which earned it a legion of new fans.

That year Bruce McPhee and Barry Mulholland successfully drove a V8 GTS Monaro to victory in the Hardie-Ferodo 500, giving Holden its first Bathurst crown and setting off a rivalry with Ford that continues to endure.

In the 1970s, Holden introduced the HQ, which ultimately became the company's biggest-selling model of all time with more than 485,000 vehicles produced, including 85,000 shipped overseas.

During the 70s, it also debuted probably its most famous advertising jingle, with its "football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars" campaign adapted from a similar tune used by Chevrolet in the US.

And the decade was also marked by the introduction of the first Commodore, the VB, which was a major change of direction for the company, with its body adapted from a German design and fitted with a local engine.

With the Commodore, the mid-sized Torana and Sunbird models and the Gemini small car, Holden had a range of vehicles that maintained its market-leading status.

Things were not so good in the 1980s.

Hit by the oil shock, sales of six-cylinder cars took a dive.

One of Holden's responses, the four-cylinder Camira, started well, but ultimately failed in the market with buyers unhappy with its lack of power and build quality.

In 1986, Holden introduced the VL Commodore, which featured a six-cylinder Nissan engine and transmission, the result of the introduction of unleaded petrol, with the Japanese product considered a better option than modifying the existing powerplant.

This led to the closure of the Woodville transmission plant in Adelaide, with Holden's operations in South Australia consolidated at the Elizabeth assembly facility.

The 1980s were also the time of the Button car plan designed to revive Australia's auto industry by encouraging carmakers to produce higher volumes of fewer models by sharing those models and also by seeking out more export sales.

Holden inked deals firstly with Nissan and later with Toyota, only to dissolve the arrangements by 1996 due to disappointing sales.

Over the next two decades, Holden's local production centred on its Commodore range, though it also reintroduced the new Monaro in 2001 and built versions of the Vectra for a short period.

In 2003, it lost market leadership to Toyota and from 2005 began introducing Korean-built Daewoo cars.

With government funding, it moved to localise production of the Cruze from 2011.

But while demand was steady, it never reached the numbers the company would have liked.

Its business in Australia was also hit hard by high production costs and a shrinking market for locally-built vehicles.

Those problems culminated in its decision to end local production in 2017 and sell only imported vehicles.

Unfortunately for Holden, things have since gone from bad to worse with the company's sales plunging by almost 29 per cent last year in an overall market down just eight per cent.

Australian Associated Press