Sadly the end of this year will see the end of an Australian icon.

The Holden Commodore will cease after a long struggle against ever declining sales.

Commodore has a long and proud history in Australia.

The first model in 1978 (the VB) replaced the legendary Holden Kingswood.

It was Opel-based and received by the motoring public with a good deal of scepticism.

But this soon passed.

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Each Commodore that followed was better than its predecessor and culminated in the best ever built Australian car, the VF in 2013.

Australian motoring tastes changed, SUVs and utes began to dominate.

Australian-built cars were just not economically feasible and sales declined rapidly.

The Australian car industry produced its last car on October 20, 2017.

In a last ditch attempt to keep the Commodore name plate afloat General Motors Holden sourced the German built ZB.

It launched in 2018, but to no avail.

The day of the big four-door sedan was dead, at least for now.

Commodore sales peaked in 1998 with 94,642 sold, dropping to just 5,417 in 2019.

So it's goodbye to an old friend.

RIP Holden Commodore.

It passes into history on December 31, 2020, aged 42.

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