Holden boss Dave Buttner leaves top job (after the worst year on record) | Auto Expert John Cadogan

Big Butts unexpectedly backs out of Holden. Sales have flatlined. Iceberg dead ahead. The once great brand is toast - it’s just a cockroach minus the head now.

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Big Butts - the former Toyota and Holden one - sucked on the teat of Holden’s poisoned chalice for 16 incredible months, which is pretty short tenure, even through the prism of Holden’s ‘revolving door’ management guarantee. He was lured out of apres-Toyota retirement by the prospect of money after doing such a mediocre job heading up Toyota here in Shitsville. Personal opinion - he was hardly John Conomos.

But not even a tsunami of greenbacks surging from Detroit to the Big Butts retirement fund was sufficient to maintain Big Butts’ arousal. Holden’s sales continued to form an orderly helix around the drain despite the immense gravitational pull of Big Butts.

In my estimation, on the balance of probability, (in other words I’m guessing without being in possession of all the facts) it was Big Butts who did the boning here, and not some faceless arsehole having a Holden performance anxiety tantrum in Detroit.

It doesn’t take a genius to realise that Holden is unsalvageable - and fortuitously enough, Big Butts is no genius. (But he does have a gift for delivering all the right management bullshit buzzwords, at times - and sometimes that’s enough. Just, not this time. It really helps if the product’s not shit, and the underlying business declines to behave like Darth Vader on crack towards customers when they need support. Just saying.)

“Dave’s experience and professionalism have been significant assets for Holden since his appointment in 2018. Not only has he led critical work, he has developed a highly credentialed leadership team, enabling an orderly transition.”

That’s part of a backpedalling bullshit statement by a faceless Detroit wonk apparently trying to put a brave face on the captain declining to submerge with the Titanic, yesterday. No mention of the rolling series of worst-ever sales in history delivered under Big Butts’ watch. Oddly enough.

Which, for the record, Occurred in February, April, July, September and October this year. So, well done there. The five worst results in 71 years. You friggin’ losers. It’s an incredible non-achievement, I think you’d agree. In any other business you’d have to really try to achieve that, but Holden just makes it look effortless.

Holden staff - the few who remain - were notified of Big Butts’ exodus yesterday by e-mail. And as far as I can join the dots, one of those vestigial staff must’ve leaked that exodus e-mail to Josh Dowling at CarAdvice … or Drive (whatever they call themselves now - he’s one of the few actual journos who remains there.)

The leak apparently occurred before the dealers found out. So that’s nice. Mr Dowling did a sterling job on the report, too. His instep slapped Holden on the testes for non-performance just right. It was ‘Goldilocks’ - not too soft to seem bent over, and not too hard to risk Holden yanking what little remains of its advertising budget from the CarAdvice/Drive/Channel Nine advertising fellatio machine. #Respect.

So, this all reeks of being an unexpected, rather than stage-managed bigwig departure. Kinda like getting a flat tyre at the roadside, when you think about it. And thankfully, the faceless backpedalling Detroit wonk we heard from earlier got down on his hands and knees at the roadside and immediately installed a temporary or ‘space saver’ CEO:

VO
“Kristian [Aquilina] has previously served as managing director of Holden New Zealand from 2015 to mid-2018, before returning to Australia to lead Marketing. Earlier this year he was promoted to Executive Director Sales, Marketing and Aftersales. With more than 22 years in the company, he has the experience, the leadership qualities and the deep understanding of the business and the market to lead GM Holden at this important time.”