In November last year, Richard Erskine’s daughter was taking his seven-month old son for a swim at Sydney’s Coogee Beach in the family’s 2018 (bought new) Holden Captiva. After the swim, she put her handbag on the driver’s seat with the keys inside while she went around to attend to the baby in his car seat. As she moved around the car, the Captiva self-locked. It was a 30 degree day. The baby and the keys were locked in. In true Australian spirit, passers-by brought their own blankets to cover the car to keep the temperature down. Richard’s daughter was distraught. The car was locked and the baby inside. No possible entry. She called the NRMA. Thirty minutes later the patrol person forced entry and got the baby out of the car.
Richard pleaded with his dealer to get Holden to take immediate steps to notify all owners of the danger of self-locking, recall all the cars with the affected keys and fix the problem. GM responded to Richard directly with one of the greatest mumbo jumbo letters in Australian automotive history. Let me give you a few quotes.
“You raised concerns that (2018 Holden Captiva) has faulty locking with the Remote Keyless Entry (RKE) function,” (no Laura, Customer Resolution Executive, Holden Customer Care, Richard raised the concern that his seven month old son nearly died in the car because it self- locked) “and requested Holden to rectify a fault with this feature. We take this opportunity to refer your Vehicle’s Owner’s Manual and under the section ‘Keys, doors and windows, pg (sic) 26 under heading ‘Passive Locking’ states not to leave the Remote Keyless Entry (RKE) transmitter in an unattended vehicle.’’ It gets worse from there.
Do you think Laura said: ‘‘Sorry to hear about your son Richard”? Or ‘‘Let’s look into why one of our keys went mad and locked a baby boy in one of our cars in 30 degree heat’’? Nup. So, I emailed Daniel Cotterill, General Manager, Communications at Holden, who basically said ‘‘The ‘passive locking’ feature is optional and can be turned off’ but other than that our (Holden) letter to Richard says it all. And he’s right. As all of us who read and write this column over the years have learned, most car companies are even more cynical, uncaring and greedy than the Wolves of Wall Street. I have been one of those dreamy-eyed Australians who defended Holden against the government, whose father only bought Holdens, who used to believe that my Holden SSV V8 (of course) ute was better than my Porker Carrera S. Sorry I was wrong. Well not about the ute. Holden are meant to be moving out of this country soon and the sooner the better.
In the last 16 years Holden has had 10 CEOs. Of course, that couldn’t be the reason that late last year Holden had its lowest monthly sales since 1948, the year when Michael McMichael bought his first car. Nup, it’s because they are so out of touch with the real world, they have managed the impossible, to alienate their greatest supporters. If Rocket Rod Sims doesn’t have a closer look at this issue, then we all should vote for the “I Want to Drop a Blancmange Down Terry Wogan’s Y-fronts Party” or my favourite, Lord Buckethead, the man wearing a cape and a tall black bucket on his head, who moved from the Gremloids party to the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. Personally, I like his policies: nationalise pop singer Adele and build “gamma” schools founded on principles including: if any child misbehaves three times, they are blasted into deep space, with the parents provided with a lovely fruit basket, by way of consolation or celebration, depending on the child.
Things were equally bleak at the 10 days of Scottsdale. With six auctions houses offering 17 per cent more cars, overall sales ($356m) were down 3 per cent on last year. But that disguised some auction houses where sales were down 25 per cent. And the most expensive car, a 1995 Fezzer F50 at Goodings, barely broke $4m. Naturally six of the top 10 sellers were Fezzers with Dave Gooding getting away some weirdos like a stunning 1932 Hispano Suiza J12 Dual Cowl Phateton with one-off coachwork by Monsieur Henri Binder for $3.5m and a 1948 Tucker 48 for $2.9m. Most excitement was around the very original, one family owner for 75 years, 1937 Beemer 328 ($1.2m). The 328 was a motor sport winner. Straight out of the blocks it won the 1936 Nurburgring Internationales Eifelrennen, then the RAC Tourist Trophy, the Alpine Rally, Le Mans and the Mille Miglia and about 100 other events.
US air force pilot Ed Giller bought the car from a mate who had ‘‘acquired’’ it from the original owner who had bought it new from Munich BMW dealer Automag. The mate got the army paint shop to respray the car Olive Drab, paint a star on the door, and add numbers on the hood so he could obtain free petrol on base. What a guy! No wonder the Yanks won the second big one. Anyway, Ed shipped it to the east coast and with his wife, Millie, drove the Beemer to Oregon. After picking up advanced degrees in chemical engineering the Gillers drove the 328 from Oregon to Illinois, while Millie was pregnant. Ed drove the car until he was 94.
Back home, reader Andrew Bilge writes: ‘‘I am a bit of a stickler for buying a German car actually made in Germany. I looked up the VW Tiguan and it’s made in Mexico. (BMW) X5 — USA, half the Mercs come from South Africa and even the (Toyota) Supra is assembled in Austria! Not sure why the Australian public are paying German prices for cars made by in Mexico by workers who likely earn around $2.50 an hour!” OK Andrew we’ll have a look.
And if you took my bad advice to buy Corvette Heroes Sweepstakes tickets then you can get your money back by emailing [email protected] and asking for a refund.
