When Holden announced it would stop building cars in Australia, a four wheeled heartbeat stopped. After all Holden is our car, an iconic brand whose rise echoed that of our nation. Holden had evolved from a saddle business servicing a frontier nation to a motoring empire building Australian cars for Australian conditions owned by over 50% of Australian families. It didn't matter that Holden had been owned by America's General Motors for 80-plus years, or that most of its cars had been imported for decades. Holden was Australia's car and every one of us had a connection to the brand, to its cars and to its place in shaping our culture.

The closure of Holden's manufacturing headquarters in 2017 means the end of the Australian motor industry as we've known it for nearly 120 years. But it's also the end of the road for the dreamers, designers, engineers and passionate car people who made the hundreds of Holden models inspired by this big, tough land. For all the international car brands on our streets today no one ever displaced Holden as the Australian car. Lavishly illustrated with never before seen photos, artwork, advertising and design sketches from the Holden archive, this book takes us deep inside the rise and fall of Holden, our car.

Contents: Introduction -- 1. Horsepower: the beginnings of Holden -- 2. GM muscles in -- 3. Australia's car -- 4. The V8 legend -- 5. The missing ingredient -- 6. Aussie performance, Scottish twist -- 7. Cracking the tonne -- 8. Designing the lion -- 9. King of the Mountain -- 10. Ancient rivalries and shotgun weddings -- 11. Holden's Korean experiment -- 12. Aussies rule -- 13. The German who shaped Holden -- 14. The car that could have been -- 15. Concept stars -- 16. The legend of the Monaro -- 17. A billion-dollar gamble -- 18. The Holden export dream -- 19. Blinded by large cars -- 20. Where it all went wrong -- 21. 11/12/13: end of the road -- 22. The future -- Timeline.

Includes index.