Horse 1117 - As Wacky as Tom Cruze

Some very strange things are happening at this moment.

I read at The Motor Report, that:
"Holden has today announced the opening of its new body shop at its Elizabeth plant in Adelaide, commissioned to produce panels for the locally-built 2011 Holden Cruze sedan."
http://www.themotorreport.com.au/50949/holden-cruze-production-plant-opens-at-elizabeth
I even checked the Holden website to see if they had any official announcements on it. Curiously the Holden website itself appears to be down, which I can only assume is because they intend to get some massive fanfare out of this.



Admittedly I don't much like the Cruze. It's an unengaging car to drive and currently the cars that we get from Incheon in South Korea are a little bit lacking in the quality department. Somehow the i30 and i20 from Hyundai and dare I say it Kia's Cerato are actually better built.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/holden-opens-new-cruze-bodyshop-20101013-16imy.html
The company on Wednesday opened the new facility at its Elizabeth plant which was developed with the help of a $149 million commitment from the federal government. It will be used to make panels and other parts for the new car which will be produced alongside Holden's existing Commodore range and go on sale early next year.
The new model gives the company more scope to tailor production volumes to meet changing consumer demands and follows a recent decision to reintroduce a second shift at Elizabeth from November and add 50 jobs.

But the SMH gave us a little clue that something might be different:

This photograph shows not the sedan but a hatchback. That in itself might be significant as currently as far as I'm aware, the Cruze is not sold as a hatchback in any market. If this is the case, then Holden may have  themselves a car for export and perhaps keep the Australian manufacturing firm going a little longer than it otherwise would have done.

The ABC it appears may have bished though, the following photo appears with this caption:

A Holden Cruze under assembly on the new production line at the Elizabeth plant in Adelaide. (ABC News)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/10/13/3037117.htm?section=business

No Aunty... those are Commodore panels, and in the background they're Commodore Sportwagon panels. Sorry, I'm not a motoring writer but even I can tell the difference.