Holden New Zealand
 |
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| Private | |
| Industry | Automotive |
| Founded | 4 January 1926 1602 / 9429040971896 |
| Headquarters | Māngere East, New Zealand |
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Key people
|
Kristian Aquilina, managing director |
| Owner | General Motors |
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Number of employees
|
36 (July 2016) |
| Parent | General Motors Holdings LLC, 3000 Renaissance Center, Detroit, Michigan, USA |
| Website | www.holden.co.nz |
Holden New Zealand Limited, named until 1994 General Motors New Zealand Limited, is a subsidiary of General Motors of Detroit and distributes General Motors' motor vehicles, engines, components and parts in New Zealand. Its Buick, Chevrolet, Oakland, Oldsmobile and Cadillac brands were all well-established before the first World War.
This company was incorporated on 4 January 1926 to build and operate a local assembly plant. Its popular cars, now including British Vauxhalls, remained common household brands until well after the second World War. Postwar British sourced Vauxhalls continued to keep the plant running together with limited numbers (restricted by currency shortages) of Chevrolets. In the late 1950s the Vauxhall and the now expansive Chevrolet and Pontiac cars began to be replaced with Australian sourced Holden vehicles supplemented by the smallest Vauxhalls and Holdens and the move to the Holden brand was completed in the 1970s.
The assembly of vehicles ended in 1990 and since then the business has been distribution of complete imported vehicles and spare parts.
The Petone assembly plant opened in 1926 and the Trentham (in Wellington's Hutt Valley area) assembly plant opened on 26 August 1967 by the Prime Minister of New Zealand Keith Holyoake. At this time, the company had almost one million square feet of floor space, situated on three (Petone and Trentham: assembly/manufacturing plants; Upper Hutt: parts, and later, assembly, warehouse and office facilities) properties in the Hutt Valley totaling 117 acres (0.47 km2). The Petone assembly plant was sold in 1984. In 1990, General Motors New Zealand announced its decision to phase out local assembly of passenger cars. In 2015, the former Trentham plant was sold to Weta Digital, while existing space is used by the New Zealand Army.
General Motors New Zealand assembled and imported GM products from Vauxhall, Bedford, Chevrolet, Buick, Isuzu, Pontiac and Opel were sold as well.
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Wikipedia