As indicated last year by our Editor, Holden has now confirmed it will introduce Daewoo models wearing Holden badges.

Later this year, the new Holden Barina and the new Holden Viva will arrive in showrooms to boost Holden’s small car presence and market leading array of passenger vehicles.

They will join Holden’s new wave of four-cylinder products such as Astra and Tigra to offer a choice of leading value and style from GM operations around the world.

Barina and Viva will include design and engineering influences from Holden, particularly in areas such as chassis and engine performance to ensure driving characteristics reflect expectations of Holden buyers.

New Holden Barina - TK series

The TK Barina will replace the existing European sourced XC model while the JF Viva will establish a new nameplate for Holden between Barina and the soon to be expanded AH Astra series. The TS Astra Classic will be phased out as the new Viva is introduced into Holden dealerships.

Viva is an old nameplate for General Motors having served for many years in the history of Vauxhall. In fact, the Vauxhall Viva was sold in Australia during the mid-1960s. The Holden Torana began its career based on the 2nd generation Vauxhall Viva. The original Vauxhall Viva was known as the HA series. The second generation Viva and the original Torana were both known as the HB series. Times have changed and now the name returns to a new era of GM's history, this time as a Holden.

New Holden Barina - TK series

Holden Chairman and Managing Director Denny Mooney said the new cars would ensure Holden’s light and small car range was even more competitive at the value end of the booming small car market.

“Barina and Viva deliver significant bang for buck, extremely class-competitive levels of quality as well as the driving feel people have come to expect from Holden,” Mr Mooney said.

”We are taking advantage of General Motors’ strong design, development and manufacturing facilities through GMDAT (Daewoo) in South Korea to tailor cars to the Australian market.

“GMDAT exports cars to more than 150 countries under some of the GM group’s leading brands including Chevrolet in parts of Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and Latin America; Buick in China and Pontiac and Suzuki in North America.

“They have been successful with the help of other brands and we believe the strength of the Holden brand means this market will be no different.

“Holden’s engineers have made significant contributions to the way cars drive and feel and we know Australians will be impressed with their overall performance.”

The TK Barina will be available in three-door and five-door hatch variants while the JF Viva will come in four-door sedan, five-door hatch and five-door wagon variants.

Mr Mooney said the two-way relationship between Holden and Daewoo was growing stronger and would be enhanced by the introduction of Barina and Viva. Holden has exported four-cylinder engines to South Korea for many years and this year began shipments of the GM Daewoo Statesman from Australia to South Korea.

“This is an important decision for Holden and we have obtained some extremely competitive vehicles for the Australian car buyer to consider,” Mr Mooney said.

“We will launch these cars throughout the rest of 2005 and intend to meet the competition for market leadership head on.”

New Holden Viva - JF series Regular readers will recall that the Editor said last year that GM was good for Daewoo and that Daewoo was good for GM. The new Barina and the new Viva, together with the as yet unannounced small AWD (petrol and diesel), are proof that Daewoo was an excellent acquisition for General Motors.