By now, most of our readers will have worked out that Holden has a massive campaign underway to promote the brand’s comprehensive line-up of SUVs.
You’ve likely seen the advertisement with Debbie Harry belting out “One way or another’’ while an art heist is going down and every Holden SUV is cunningly promoted.
The whole ‘range’ concept of marketing vehicles is the most cost-effective way to highlight the fact your brand has a solution for every situation, but once you’ve done a range promotion, how do you keep it going?
Holden New Zealand came up with a decidedly off-the-wall (and off the coast) idea, which just happened to coincide with the brand’s 65th anniversary: take the range of SUVs to a standout location, awash with history that includes 65 in it somewhere.
Said destination, the Chatham islands, which – apparently, for Holden’s purposes – rose out of the sea some 65 million years ago… well, it sounds good anyway and who’s to say they didn’t?
What such an event gave Holden was the kudos of being the only new car brand to do a launch on the Chathams, cementing a milestone in not only the brand’s, but automotive history.
Shipping anything to the Chathams is an extraordinary business. You can do it by air on aircraft that saw service in the 1950s (very Indiana Jones) and that will take you about two hours from Wellington, or alternatively, you can freight by sea, which can take three days (again, very Indiana Jones).
Needless to say, neither is an easy – nor inexpensive – exercise, which makes you wonder how Holden can put such silly prices on its vehicles.
Holden’s current specials are available for May and June and include a saving of $6,000 on Equinox LS, $7,000 reduction on a Trax LS, $6,000 off a Tourer, through to a massive $13,000 saving on the Trailblazer LTZ, all of which took the long way by sea to the most far flung outpost of New Zealand.
The human element flew on Air Chathams speedbird, a 1958 Convair prop job which has an awe-inspiring history in itself.
Top speed of around 350 miles an hour, operational ceiling of not very high, because the cabin is not pressurised, no inflight entertainment, no airpoints, no overhead cabin lockers, no excess luggage allowance (one bag of 23kg checked and one carry-on) but a heckuva lot of fun, Air Chathams has a bespoke fleet which might take off on time, or it might not, and nobody seems to mind.
Most would expect the Chathams to be islands the size of maybe Waiheke or possibly mainland Fiji. You’d be wrong: the island is huge, with a main lagoon big enough to swallow Singapore.
The size of the place will continue to astound you. The roading network (well groomed gravel interspersed with splats of tarmac) covers some 170kms and traffic congestion is usually down to free ranging cows, hawks which can be mistaken for American eagles, weka (naturally) feral emu, and every now and again, a local coming your way, trailing a large comet tail of dust. Some will slow for you, others won’t, but everybody waves.
The Chathams is still a harsh place where civilisation is a thin veneer, there’s still a pioneering/colonising feel to the place, despite the three schools, hospital, police force (of two this year), and businesses like ‘Mitre 9’ and the local ‘3 Square.’ Ask a local about Westfield and he’ll point to the coast of New Zealand, indicating the paddock that lies in the same general direction.
Tourism Chathams is run by Toni, who owns the MAF appointed drug dog; Hotel Chathams and attached pub, the rental car fleet for the Chathams and soon, the small boutique tourism industry of Forget-Me-Not cottages, since the tourist trade is becoming a big thing in this wilderness paradise.
Toni knows every one of the 600 residents permanently living on the Chathams, and she reckons they all know each other too.
Well, you sort of have to, as travelling around on the island means you have to traverse various farms (including that of the mayor) to get around and see the sights.
We know this, because the five brand new Holdens, the diminutive Trax, mid-sized Equinox, go anywhere Trailblazer, arrive in style Acadia and the yeah-its-not-really-an-SUV Commodore Tourer went all over the island roads in the course of week with different motor-noters, all marvelling at what is still New Zealand, but which incorporates so much of the rest of the world: Scotland, South America, Nebraska, Ireland, Alaska, Canada. See the world two hours off the coast of Godzone.
Of all the vehicles driven during Company Vehicle’s time on the Chathams, the outright pick of the pack was the Commodore Tourer for comfort. We liked the stability of the Equinox on gravel and the implacability of the Trailblazer when the going got interesting even by Chathams standards.
The Acadia delivered the most relaxed ride of all, while the perky Trax reminded us so much of drug dog Pippi for its enthusiasm and terrier-like terrain following.
It would seem then that someone at Holden New Zealand knew exactly what he was doing when it came to promoting ‘’the way Holden SUV’s’’ by travelling to the Chathams, where it’s a Kiwi lifestyle, Jim, just not quite as we mainlanders know it.
