Why Do Some Holden Commodores Have Chevy Bowtie Badges?
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The explanation of why some Holden Commodores have Chevy bowtie badges goes back to Holden’s place in the automotive universe. Holden was an Australian automotive manufacturer that was a part of General Motors until it ceased all car production on December 31, 2020. From model years 2014 through 2017, General Motors imported the high-performance Holden Commodore VF model into the U.S. This Holden model became a part of the Chevrolet lineup and was named the Chevrolet SS for U.S. sale. As a result of this brand change, the SS received Chevy bowtie badging to replace the Holden badging that the car wore in its home market. A total of 12,924 units of the rare Chevrolet SS were produced during its four-year run in the Chevy lineup.
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The availability of Chevrolet badging for the Holden Commodore VF has led to some Commodore owners in Australia replacing their Holden badges with Chevy bowtie badges made for the Chevrolet SS. Another good reason for drivers of Holden Commodores to add a Chevy badge is the fact that the Commodore VF’s engine is the 6.2-liter Chevrolet LS3, which debuted in the C6 Corvette and produced 415 horsepower in the Holden.
The Chevy SS wasn’t the first rebadged Holden
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Importing the Holden Commodore VF as the Chevrolet SS was the brainchild of General Motors Product Vice Chairman Bob Lutz, who had been in the post since 2001 and had previously done the same thing twice for the now-dead Pontiac brand. The 2000s Pontiac GTO and the Pontiac G8 were Holden models that had been imported from Australia and rebadged to spice up the Pontiac product lineup. GM would do the same for Chevrolet in 2014 with the SS, an updated version of the dearly departed Pontiac G8.
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The Chevrolet SS didn’t sell well, but it put up some excellent performance numbers for its day. A Car and Driver test of a manual Chevrolet SS recorded a 0-60 mph time of 4.5 seconds and a 0-100 mph time of 10.8 seconds. Motor Trend called the Chevrolet SS the spiritual successor to the famed 450-horsepower LS9 big block Chevelle SS 454, one of the most powerful muscle cars of the 1970s.
