Worst Selling Sports Car In Australian History | Holden Piazza
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- Опубликовано: 13 окт 2024
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I reckon they gave more of these away on Sale of the Century than they actually sold.
Either that or the Camira. What a shit heap. "-)
I worked at a Mitsubishi dealer where we had a piazza as a trade in. I thought it drove ok. Then I opened the bonnet and saw it had a turbo. When you consider a Mitsubishi cordia had had similar power but weighed 230 kg less, it made the piazza seem slow.
Yeah they were introduced to compete with the Cordia but the Cordia was a nicer car and not as bold styling wise. I nearly bought one back in the day but after I lifted the bonnet and saw Izusu's version of turbo fuel injected I gave it a miss due to it being to complicated. The hose count was amazing.
@@dazaspc Had 2 Cordia Turbo's both great easy simple and cheap to work on front wheel drive cars. 2nd had blueprinted engine and massive turbo off an Evo. 250 hp at front wheels in a car weighting 1000kg....huge fun and seriously quick.
I laughed when I heard the phrase "car culture" accompanied with vids of burnouts.
The amount of Piazza's that we parted out to repower Gemini's back in the day...Probably did at least 7 swaps, we had it down to an art by the end.
I know of one of the ones we did the swap to still exists, dunno about the rest.
VL's were everywhere- used & abused; we got the BT1's and flogged the shit outta them, usually ending their lives in a mates paddock and later parted out & burnt, and finally pushed into the creek bank to stop erosion
We knew it in America as the Izusu Impulse... and the Gemini as the Chevette, which it shared underpinnings with. Irony: The Chevette won a hat-full of Group-4 rally championships, some if which were done with a 200-hp DOHC 2.3L Lotus engine.
BTW: The bragging point of the Impulse was that it's suspension was Lotus tuned.
Was it any good, though?
I remember one got dumped at my local shops in the 80's. Apparently a disgruntled employee stole the bosses Piazza and flogged the crap out of it then jumped up and down on the roof. Nice shout out there to the MX-6 turbo, I've got one tucked away in my garage!
One that people forget exist ! Glad it still lives on.
You want a skippy badge for that mx6 don't you?
@@EdmundSampson-pd7vi How many do you have and where can I buy them?
@@CRFLAus last one I saw was on Facebook market place about 5 years ago and it was about $3000 from memory
Isn’t that the one with the dangerous torque steer shenanigans?😂
The Piazza (piat-za) was actually designed in the '70s alongside/inspiring the DeLorean, but only the Piazza had a series of body innovations that became commonplace on modern cars and gave it longevity; as noted manufactured and sold in various international markets from '81-'91, a long time for essentially a single generation car. First time I've heard it so slated; a mistake perhaps not proffering the later Lotus handling version or other adaptations for the Australian market. But these are things that some of the more swtiched-on commenters here note can be tuned as with most cars. The HBL handles pretty much to modern standards. I'm in the UK but actually have an imported 'Holden' badged Piazza in the restoration queue (barn find - no idea how it got here!)...will be an interesting project...
If i was driving the Holden Pizza 🍕
Every day, I’d be always hungry. No wonder it failed 😂
I owned a silver Piazza from 1999 to 2001, paid $6000 and hardly drove it and sold it for $3300. It never at any time ran right, there was always some kind of vacuum or idle problem and I just gave up trying to keep it tuned. Never seen a car with so many warning lights on the dash and always had a few of them lit up with some non urgent electrical issue. Havent seen one on the road for decades. Just checked online and there is a silver one for sale for $17K. Best of luck to that guy, its the same colour as the one I had and same area but no way to know if its the same car.
Seems to be a total of 3 listed in Australia right now. Average price $18k
@@phillpana It would take an enormous amount of work to keep a car like that running as a daily driver, I was never able to find a mechanic to sort thru the jungle of hoses and connectors to diagnose a problem. No fault codes back in those days to tell you whats wrong, everything was manual trial and error and guesswork to fix. Finding a faulty sensor to extinguish a warning light took many hours of expensive labour. In hindsight one could have purchased 2 fully optioned V8 Commodores for the price of 1 Piazza and had less than half the maintenance costs and triple the resale value.
I remember reading article after article about the Isuzu Piazza in the 3 motoring magazines back then, but never knew the car ever actually went on sale. I's been nearly 40 years and I have **never** seen one. (Meanwhile, Starions, Scorpions, Celicas, T18 Corollas, those little Ford convertibles, Nissan Exa Turbos etc, all of those were everywhere.)
I remember those cars We all called them Pizzas. Nobody liked them.
i saw a red one a few times a couple of years back when i was driving through korrumburra. The Sale Of The Century music started in my head immediately
Loved seeing a 120Y doing a burnout. Surprised it could go fast enough to do one. You could jog past that car doing top speed.
18 year old's will make anything do a burnout.
@@phillpana Yep, I was doing hand-brake burnouts in my '76 1.1 litre Corolla back in 1996! (It was actually quite a good car- for $500!)
I still can't believe your not more popular
Ok, first up, that black one with the aftermarket wheels actually looks good.
The car was pretty much an Isuzu, I think most of what Holden put into it would have been the badges. Holden as the years went on sold quite a few different models of car that were Holden badged but made by other manufacturers
Among them, Suzuki Swift/Holden Barina, Nissan Pulsar/Holden Astra, Toyota Crown/Holden Apollo, Suzuki Jimney (I think) Holden Drover, I think the Toyota Corolla stood in for the Astra a bit later on as well. I'm sure there were others.
While still making Commodores Holden still had a link with locals in Australia. The decision to stop making them and kill off local manufacturing of Holdens, and to sell badged generic GM cars from the old Daewoo plant in South Korea basically killed Holden.
It was a bit of a 'New Coke' moment for them, but worse.
I have owned one. Did a few upgrades with the suspension, brakes and turbo. Was actually one the nicest zippy cars i have ever actually had. I think it cops alot of flack because Holden just copied and pasted it instead of doing some better refinements for australian conditions. Not sure how it could be compared to the VL, almost chalk and cheese. I had a calibra a few years after and that was about the same. If you buy one in the today's times and modify a few things to today's standards, they arent a bad get around car to leave the gasguzzling 'VL' in the shed during the week. Holden never actually made alot here in Australia as most of their smaller cars were imported anyway, if not completely, mostly and then assembled here. All manufacturers did it back then, and then Holden did it again for the last 'Crapodore' which went as well with the Australian public as last years waste of money referendum. But the Piazza was a nice car, pretty much the same as the Ford Telstar TX5, you just had to spend money on fixing things the manufacturer should have which people didn't want to, rightfully so.
I like it. Real insight. I'd argue if the price was lower and journalists were kind to the Pizza car then maybe it would have done better.
@phillpana it wasn't great when it came out simply because it was a trial car. It did terrible here because it wasn't adapted to our roads and conditions. People were comparing it to the Camira, the Toyota corolla/camry, even the the telstar and festiva. Each to their own but I never had an issue with mine when I cleaned up a few things and replaced the bushings with decent ones. Anyone who buys cars enough knows that all the bushings, brakes, filters etc from factory are always garbage and made to the dollar, not longitudinal quality. Even when I bought new commodores and flagons back in the day, after 12 months - 2 years I would start to replace factory consumable items with aftermarket due to 9.5 times out 10 being a better quality. I do agree, alot of the issues were warranted and we as a consumer shouldn't have to replace things that the manufacturer should have done better at the beginning but that's just life. Even building houses, you're going to come across the same thing. When you're buying at a budget, you're going to get budget quality.
Nah, the Piazza was & is cool. Finding a good one now would be very expensive. I never understood the hate directed at this very nice looking car, it wasn't designed to beat a 3.0 VL or RX7s. My square 1985 fwd Gemini drove like a tractor, but these were ok to drive, press reviews were bs imo. Oh well, cheers.
They were rubbish.
Lotus actually tuned the suspension on what America saw of them: The Izusu Impulse. Further note: The Vauxhall version of the 70's Gemini--the Chevette--was a well-known champion of Group-4 FIA rally competition.
Shame the American Chevette never got any of that built into it. Guess it might've made the Camaro Z28 look "slow"...!😕
I couldn't believe how bad the suspension was reported to be after Holden had applied RTS to the regular Gemini. Then the price...
Saw one in the wild recently, couldn’t believe it
I had one about 20 years ago.
The handling and ride were fine.
In fact, of all the cars ive had, the Piazza was the easiest and most predictable car to drive sideways.
The real proble was they seem ridiculously nose heavy, to the point that forward traction is an issue compared to other cars, especially on cornr exit.
Definitely not dngerous or uncomfortable though.
Just slow, due to traction issues. Looked fast though!
The piazza on car sales has been on there for at least 1 year, probably almost 2 haha
It's a built engine though
Buy it ! What could go wrong. 🤣
IT looks like my 1984 Toyota Carolla SR5 Hatchback i had when i was a kid
Ex-girlfriends dad owned one and let me drive it in pouring rain one day.....I don't think he liked me all that much :)
2:17 what's the purpose of running over the cones?
I asked myself that question, too. the late 80's were weird times for car ads I guess.
One thing to note, the design was destined to be for the scirocco mk2, yet vw didnt like it, even if the mk1 was a hit, so, if i remember correctly, isuzu bought the design or was it italdesign that sold it to them?
I believe that is true but I couldn't 100% confirm
@@phillpana To start with, Giugiaro is pronounced Jujaro as Italian has no J, so Gi is used to imitate its sound). The Piazza started as his "Ace of Clubs" prototype and used to illustrate Italdesign's print ads for quite a number of years. If the Ace of Clubs was meant to be for VW, getting Izusu to shoehorn their running gears into it might have been more work, and might have got something to do with its poor dynamics. However, the Ace of Clubs was presented in 1979 and on the outset branded as an Isuzu. It does not discount the Scirocco hypothesis as it fits the timeline between its first and second generations.
Mate had a piazza back in the day, fir what it was it actually was pretty nice to drive
Piazza looked like nothing else on the road in Aus at the time but it sold to the wrong people because of this. A hair Dressers car. The under bonnet hose count put most people off though but modernized today it would be a weapon. Solid Engine and its competitor the Cordia being FWD no real comparison.
I had a mate who had one in the early 90's that was modified ( with a boost increase & exhaust ) It was the quickest car i had ever been in. As a passager it would throw you back in the seat & keep you there. I recall a traffic light challange with a VL SS GPA Walkinshaw & the Piazza left it meters behind .. So a truely underated car in my books !
We had them here in the UK, the Isuzu piazza, a real turd on wheels.
Funny, I owned a 1989 Isuzu Impulse Turbo Lotus. That was the best handling car I have ever driven that was not an expensive sports car. I had to sell it when I got married and expecting a kid. I wish that I still had that today. Instead, I own another car designed by the same designer; 1992 Subaru SVX.
Tuned by lotus must have been a game changer ! Maybe if Holden got those models it may had been different.
I'd forgotten about them
Piazzas did have some use though, quite a few of them got cannibalised for parts for everyone who had a Gemini.
Pretty much all the drivetrain and braking stuff was an easy swap upgrade, and unlike the Piazza the Geminis were a decent platform and could be made to handle quite well. And the Piazza had such a woeful reputation they were virtually worthless secondhand so most ended up as Gemini parts donors.
I remember those days, chasing piazza parts, fun times
Best sports car sold in Australia, Valiant Charger.
Love your work.
Thank you!
The black one, are in sweden, reg plate DNA 792
We had the Japanese import Isuzu model in NZ. They were an absolute PIG!! Just horrible.
Calibra still looks good even today
Yeah they were are shitbox but at the time and kinda still look pretty good. A Japanese Alfa Romeo lol
Mitsubishi Starion same concept, much much much better car. Mitsubishi Galant was a family car not a two door sports car. Drove a twin cam 4 valve manual Calibra, was a nice car, fixing it would've been expensive. Brought a Mazda MX6 V6, should've brought the Calibra if worried about ownership costs, boy-oh-boy $$.
I heard about this car but may have seen one
How is this Isuzu end up Italian designed .
No shit a turbo VL is more powerful 😅 We're talking about a 4 vs a 6 from the same era...
I think the point was the pizza car was more expensive and clearly a bad deal.
@@phillpana 5 grand more than a VL Calais turbo when new.Our Pharacist had one new from 1986 to 1999 then came a VS Statesman series 3 and a VE OR VF CALAIS.He did the right thing.
I remember it's an Isuzu, it's as Italian as me. It was junk.
Oh total Aussie bullshit. Owned a Piazza and loved it. Always wanted a V6 Calibra but never managed it. Sun shining out of Holdens butt? Haha look where it got you. Extinction.
How come you sold your Piazza?
@@phillpana I wanted a Renault 25 V6.
Isn't that the Renault Fuego????
The Fuego and the Piazza both came out about the same time, they do look quite similar at the front, not so much from the back
Ironically, you butchered "Piazza" but did well with "Giorgetto Giugiaro"
Just repeated the Holden Ad pronunciations 😅
Admitting it was overpriced and giving existing owners $5000 back, plus dropping the sticker price, didn't do it any favours.
Its distinct lack of real sporting prowess put paid to the rest.
the problem is they sold it in the same showrooms as say a Calais Turbo for way less.Let's not forget we only a few years before this had just come out of the Torana Hatchback days.
But to be fair Holden didn't make anything good after the EH and borrowing the design of the Renault Fuego ain't gonna do anyone any favours especially if you make it uglier ;)
And the EH wasn't very good.
EEsuzu.. frustrates me that it gets mispronounced in Australia so much lol
Pretty sure they had an entire ad in the 80's dedicated to western incorrect pronunciations of Isuzu
*Giugiaro. But you're not too far off with your pronunciation.
I was guaranteed to get it wrong
It’s not Eye-suzu… it’s Eee-suzu.🖕🤖
Australia car are bad 👎
Australia airlines are good👍
Umm...have you been shoved into a Jetstar lately lol? 🤣
Never been in an Aussie V8 then! The last Monaros were praised around the world as great cats!