Holden on

Here's a turn-up for the books. The Holden Cruze is out-selling the ubiquitous Commodore both here and in Australia. Put another way, a relatively small car is outstripping the big Aussie V8 and V6 touring cars which have for so long been an integral part of the Antipodean roadscape.

Such has been the Cruze success in Australia that it's the first time since 1978 that the Commodore wasn't Australia's best-selling Holden.

By March this year the Cruze was the bestselling car in the light segment in New Zealand. 229 Cruze models were sold compared to Commodore at 171 and, interestingly, in between both those Holdens the Captiva also had a stronger showing than Commodore. It means Holden cars captured three places in the top ten of car sales for the month.

And it means times are a 'changing and yet in examining the Cruze there's every reason why it's generating a healthy buying audience.

There are two body styles available (hatch and sedan) in three models. The SRI model is a hatch only. There are three engine options-the 1.4 turbo petrol, or what they term the 'intelligent' turbo, the 1.8 litre petrol engine and the 2.0 litre diesel. All these engine variants have the economical four-cylinders.

So far so fairly standard but the captivating things about the Cruze are its elegant style, its performance (particularly in the sporty model) and the fact it's very deceptively large-almost Commodore proportions-but effectively and efficiently massaged and manipulated into a sweeter smaller body.

At first glance the assumption is the Cruze has been styled and made in Europe ah la Opel. It has that certain look about it. But, no, it's pure Aussie. Development work on the Series II began in 2009 and if you read the Aussie papers the motoring press seem uniform in their assessment that the Aussie engineers have got it right. Mind you, most Aussie journalists are predictably pro-Aussie but this time it's hard to disagree with them on their collective opinions of the Cruze.

Stunning styling spills over into the interior with its beautifully sculptured seats and other design qualities. The flagship of the range, the SRI-V, has LCD touch-screen technology and audio and voice-recognition for the audio and navigation functions and Bluetooth. How cool, mate!

On the road she's a spirited and highly competent performer too. Then there is price. Starting from a shade under $30,000 at the tail end to just over $40,000 for the top-of-the-line you'd have to say value-for-money is excellent. The 1.4 litre is actually a little dearer than the 1.8 litre because of the intelligent turbo and other higher-spec inclusions.

In summary Holden's Cruze is something of a startling and highly interesting package well worth a look if you're in the market for a European-inspired car competently made almost on our doorstep.