If you’re a red-blooded, VB-downing, meat-and-two-veg Aussie — you watch the V8s every weekend, you’ve been up Mount Panorama every year since Brockie’s first Bathurst victory — you’ll either be a die-hard Ford or Holden fan. And if you’re a Holden guy, you’ll probably have owned a Commodore. Holden won’t build the Commodore in Australia from 2017, and that means no more barnstorming rear-wheel drive V8. But the Commodore name lives on, and we’ve just seen our first glimpse of what it’s like. The guys from CarAdvice have driven a 2018 Commodore prototype — and it sounds pretty special.
CarAdvice has a comprehensive run-down of the 2018 Commodore prototype, which it tested out at Holden’s Lang Lang proving ground in a very early-stage preview. Holden says the 2018 prototype, based on the Opel Insignia, is just 65 per cent complete in the form you see in the video above — with no adjustments or tuning for Australian road conditions.
And here’s the big news: the future Commodore won’t have a rear-wheel drive variant. Instead, it’ll be offered with 2.0-litre petrol and 2.0-litre diesel four-cylinder engines in a front-wheel drive configuration, and a naturally aspirated 3.6-litre petrol V6 all-wheel drive model at the top of the range. The all-paw car will have a nine-speed automatic gearbox, and no differential with a dual-clutch system controlling front and rear wheels independently, with torque vectoring.
Click through to CarAdvice to learn all the nitty gritty details, but we’re excited for the new Commodore even if it doesn’t have that traditional Commodore front-engine-rear-drive setup. Front-wheel drive is more efficient, and all-wheel drive is safer for Australia’s varied road conditions. RWD is becoming a thing of the past for everyday cars, but we’re not going to miss it. [CarAdvice]