First Drive: Holden Hits The Mainstream Medium
James Stanford
30 April 2007
www.goauto.com.au
GM Holden swaps Vectra for Epica in its quest to challenge Camry's mid-sized mantra.
GM Holden has taken on the mighty Toyota Camry with a new mid-sized sedan. In a dramatic realignment, Holden has dumped the European Opel-sourced Vectra and replaced it with the cheaper Epica sedan, which is produced by Daewoo in South Korea.
The Epica is the fourth Daewoo model to join the Holden range following Barina, Viva and Captiva, and has gone on sale in Australia with a base price of $25,990.
Instead of competing against the Honda Accord Euro and the upcoming Ford Mondeo, Holden is pitching its new player straight at Toyota owners – even referring to the car as its "Camry fighter".
The company also hopes the Epica will be able to lure some buyers of the Mazda6, Subaru Liberty and the similarly-priced Hyundai Sonata.
It says the Epica would also compete against the six-cylinder Toyota Aurion, but insists its research shows the car would not appeal to Commodore buyers.
Click here to continue article
Review: Holden Epica CDX/CDXi
Mike Sinclair
2 May 2007
www.carpoint.com.au
Built as a world car and tweaked to take on the Camry Down Under, the Epica delivers plenty of equipment, but not so much bang, for your bucks.
What we liked
>> Interior space
>> Engine smoothness
>> Improved fit and finshes
Not so much
>> Engine lacks torque
>> No ESP -- even as an option
>> No 'tiptronic' function on auto
Overall rating: 3.0/5.0
Engine/Drivetrain/Chassis: 3.0/5.0
Price, Packaging and Practicality: 3.5/5.0
Safety: 3.0/5.0
Behind the wheel: 3.0/5.0
X-factor: 2.5/5.0
OVERVIEW
Forget about what you've read about this car being a Vectra replacement -- it aint! From day one Holden is making no bones about where it is aiming its new Epica. While the former midsizer had European pretensions, the new (relatively) cheap and (relatively) cheerful conventional medium segment sedan has one vehicle in its sights -- Toyota's Camry.
It is the Camry against which Holden has benchmarked the car in terms of dynamics and refinement. It's the Camry the Epica needs to match in terms of accommodation and engine performance and it's Camry that Holden says Epica beats in terms of fuel economy.
Indeed, the Lion's even offering a money-back guarantee on the Epica (with strings!) to try and tempt notoriously loyal Camry buyers into its new offering.
But while the two cars from archrival manufacturers both feature 'default' front-wheel drive platforms and suspension configurations, there's one big difference. The Holden is offered only with a six-cylinder engine. It's no powerhouse, however, and far from comparable with Toyota's V6 Camry, errr... Aurion.
In fact, with just 115kW/237Nm in its most powerful (2.5-litre) form, the Holden (nee Daewoo) six is 2kW shy of the Toyota's 2.4-litre four and barely ahead of the latest 2.2-litre four offered in the Astra SRi (110kW/210Nm). There's better news on the torque front -- the Epica is 19Nm up on the Camry -- but you get the idea
Holden is playing up the "refinement" of the engine configuration while at the same time going to great pains to point out the car matches or betters its main four-cylinder competition in terms of official ADR combined fuel economy stats.
Epica's official ADR fuel economy number is 8.2lt/100km for the 2.0-litre manual variant and 9.3lt/100km for the 2.5-litre automatic. This compares to 8.9 (manual) and 9.9lt/100km (auto) official figures for Toyota's 2.4-litre Camry.
Click here to continue article