South Australia’s most popular cars by council area

The Holden Lion is still roaring along SA roads, but there are pockets where car owners are buying up other brands. Do you live in an area where the Commodore is king? Search our list.

The Holden Lion is still roaring along many South Australian roads, despite most other Australians abandoning the state’s beloved icon.

Remarkably, despite the locally made Commodore being pronounced dead on August 2017, latest ABS rego figures show it remains king of 24 out of 71 local areas in SA.

Even overseas-made Holdens were dumped by GM in 2021, ending the brand name – but nobody can have told Adelaide’s northern suburbs residents, where the love affair continues. The Commodores they made for decades are still the number one registered car in the Gawler council area, as well as in Playford, Salisbury and Tea Tree Gully.

RAA future motoring expert Simon Halford said the phenomenon could also partly be explained by the yearning country drivers still have for six-cylinder highway cruisers like the Commodore.

“Australians used to say ‘2 litres is for milk cartons’ in reference to the engine size of a lot of smaller four-cylinder cars,’’ he said.

“But the sedan shape six-cylinder cars like Commodore disappeared from the landscape, so people who want them are hanging on to them and delaying turning them over.

“There are still many historic Commodores going back to the late 1990s which have very little wrong with them except for paint and interior trim problems and a few oil leaks.

“Not just Commodores, but there was a rush on the (overseas) Holden-made Colorado towards the end, because it was a very sound vehicle.”

October 20, 2017, workers with the last cars to roll off their production line at Elizabeth in Adelaide.

The state’s main regional population centres prove the point, with owners still ranking the now historic Holden Commodore as number one in Mt Gambier, Port Pirie, Whyalla, Victor Harbor, Port Lincoln, Mt Barker, Murray Bridge, the Barossa and areas of the Riverland.

The South Australian picture is in sharp contrast to much of the rest of the country.

Only Victoria has more local government areas where Holden’s Commodore rules; 34.

Toyota dominates car ownership in most states. In NSW, it makes up almost a quarter of the 5.5 million registered cars, and is the most popular automotive marque in all but two of that state’s 129 local government areas.

Holden enthusiast Randy Neos has two Holdens, and lives in another council area where the Commodore is number one; Onkaparinga. Picture Dean Martin

Holden enthusiast Randy Neos has two Holdens, and lives in another council area where the Commodore is number one; Onkaparinga.

He owns a 1984 Commodore and one of the last built here, an SS Commodore.

“I think people know Holden because it has been around for so long, and today there are so many options but they still trust the Holden,’’ Mr Neos said.

Vehicles like his SS Commodore, a V8, made their reputation on the racetrack in the country’s premier motorsport event, the Supercars series, and before that the touring cars series.

But for the first time this year even the replica of the German Commodore design has been replaced with a replica of the Chev Camaro from the United States. Ford has been using the replica Mustang design for years, both it and the Camaro using a retro design evoking the 1960s high point of the imported American products.

Other states where the Holden afterglow continues are NSW with 11 number one Commodore rankings, WA with 5, and Queensland with one.

The endurance of the Commodore brand is even more remarkable given that by the last year of Australian production it had slumped to the 8th most sold car, and the German-designed model dropped out of the top ten the following year.

With Commodores no longer being sold, the top models registered bear no resemblance to the most popular sales so far in 2023; Toyota HiLux 21,951, Ford Ranger 21,407, Isuzu D-Max 10,743, Toyota RAV4 10,665, Tesla Model 3 10,117, MG ZS 9823, Mazda CX-5 9795, Mitsubishi Outlander 9718, Hyundai i30 8691 and Tesla Model Y 8442.

Even in death South Australians continue to shun Ford’s Commodore rival, with the Falcon only being the most commonly registered vehicle in only one location; Peterborough.

Mr Halford said the Holden rankings would be lost in future years as repair problems began to dog the ageing vehicles and warrantee agreements ran out.

“But there will be a lag period, because the older more affordable Commodores are always popular with younger drivers, and because you can’t get them — or even those sort of cars — anymore people will hang on to them as second or historic cars,’’ he said.

Posh areas of the state are among the 19 local council areas to dump the Commodore, not just from the top spot, but anywhere in the top three.

The Burnside, Unley, Walkerville, Robe, and Norwood Payneham and St Peters council areas are also among those to banish Commodores from any of the top three positions.

In the Flinders Ranges, where two-wheel drive cars are not practical, Commodores are not as popular. Most popular registered models there are the Toyota Landcruiser, Toyota HiLux and Mitsubishi Triton rule.

Likewise the difficult-to-navigate APY lands, where Toyota’s four-wheel-drive range makes a clean sweep of the podium; Landcruiser, HiLux and Prado.

Four-wheel-drives were surprise winners in the Adelaide City Council area, where Toyota HiLux, Ford Ranger, and the sedan Toyota Camry are most commonly registered.