Holden History:
In 1852, James Alexander Holden immigrated to South Australia from England and established J.A. Holden & Co in 1856, a saddlery business in Adelaide. Edward Holden, James" son, entered the firm in 1905 with an interest in automobiles. From there, the firm evolved through various partnerships and in 1908, as Holden and Frost, moved into the business of minor repairs to car upholstery. The company began producing complete motorcycle sidecar bodies in 1913, and Edward experimented with fitting bodies to different types of carriages. After 1917, wartime trade restrictions led the company to commence full-scale production of vehicle body shells. J.A. Holden incorporated a new company in 1919, HoldensMotor Body Builders Ltd (HMBB).HMBB made bodies to suit a number of chassis imported from manufacturers such as Buick and Dodge. In 1931 General Motors purchased the business and formed General Motors–HoldensLtd. Since then two name changes have occurred, the first in 1998 when the company became Holden Ltd and the second in May 2005 when it became GM Holden Ltd.

Holden Overview:
Holden, officially GM Holden Ltd, is an Australian automaker based in Port Melbourne, Victoria, originally independent but now a subsidiary of General Motors. The Holden automotive marque is one of GMs"alpha" brands. Holden has taken charge of vehicle operations for General Motors in Australia and holds partial ownership of GM Daewoo in South Korea on behalf of GM. Over the years, Holden has offered a broad range of locally produced vehicles, with supplementary models imported from various parts of the GM Empire. In the past, Holden has offered rebadged Nissan and Toyota models in sharing arrangements. Holden cars are manufactured at Elizabeth, South Australia, while engines are produced at Port Melbourne, Victoria. Historically, production or assembly plants were operated in all mainland states of Australia: Woodville, South Australia Pagewood, New South Wales, Dandenong, Victoria, Acacia Ridge, Queensland and Mosman Park, Western Australia. Consolidation of all car production at Elizabeth, South Australia, was completed in 1988, although some assembly operations continued at Dandenong until the mid-1990s. The Holden New Zealand subsidiary opened an assembly plant based in Petone, New Zealand, in 1926, but manufacturing operations ceased after an announcement was made on April 26 1990 indicating local production would be phased out and vehicles would be imported duty free.

Other Holden Details:
Holden has been a subsidiary of General Motors since 1931.The headquarters is currently located in Port Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Its also under the Chairmanship of Chris Gubbey who is also the Managing Director. The major export market for Holden is in New Zealand where it is used as police cars. The Holden Commodore have also been sold in South Africa and Thailand and are currently marketed in parts of the Middle East badged as Chevrolet Luminas. In Brazil badge-engineered Commodores are sold as the Chevrolet Omega, and both V6 and V8 versions of the Commodore will be exported to the United States as the Pontiac G8 starting in 2008. Holdensexports to the Middle East and Brazil were the first left-hand drive cars built since the 1960s, when Holden sold cars in Hawaii.