Times may be difficult for the region's Holden dealers following last week's announcement that General Motors would stop manufacturing the vehicles.
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"The last figures I heard is they were lucky to sell one in 33 sales. One Holden in 33," Lyndon Hardman, of the Australian Transport Museum, Armidale, said.
Some dealers have already diversified into other marques like Toyota, Suzuki, and Subaru. Others have been less lucky: Glen Severn Holden - the last car dealer in Glen Innes - closed in 2017.
Holden vehicles can still be bought from dealers in Armidale (Graham Betts), Tenterfield (Sexton & Green), and Moree / Goondiwindi (Tait Auto Group).
The Holden brand will be retired in Australia and New Zealand by next year; production will cease in June. Some say this is the end of the Australian car industry - but it's been slowly dying for years.
General Motors pulled out of Australia in the 2010s, cutting nearly 3000 jobs, and closed the Adelaide production line in 2017. Last year, after its lowest annual sales since 1954, the company announced it would discontinue the Commodore and Astra.
READ MORE: A timeline of Holden in Australia
"It's a disgrace," Russell Nicholson, secretary of the Classic & Specialist Car Club of Northern NSW, said.
"They ran the whole business in Australia down to a design team - people doing engineering analyses and whatever - and stopped manufacturing a year or so back. The writing was on the wall."
The problem, Mr Nicholson believes, is the cultural cringe: Australia's lack of confidence in its industries.
"We're well capable of making a car in Australia; we did make them, but we always had to follow in somebody else's footsteps," he said.
"The car industry is gone. I don't know that we make another Holden in Australia anymore. There's a whole swag of supporting industries which are almost dead."
Mr Nicholson has driven Holdens for more than 50 years. "They're totally reliable," he said. "I would be, if it were possible, a rusted-on Holden buyer."
He learnt to drive in his father's 1959 model Holden EC when he was 18, back in 1968. "Between him and me, we drove that car - a very basic, simple car - for 17 years. I've had Toranas and a Kingswood station wagon. I'm currently driving a Commodore. They were - and still are - very simple, practical cars."
"One thing that annoys me: you see old films of Bob Menzies and other people getting out of cars in front of Parliament House. They were in Holdens. All our over self-important politicians these days wouldn't be seen dead in a Holden. It's just a disgrace. They have no national pride."
Lyndon Hardman believes it was inevitable General Motors would stop manufacturing the Holdens.
"The cost of building more volume of them really doesn't warrant it," he said, regretfully. "General Motors will retain the name of Holden, and they will control whether we [Australia] ever use it again, or they do. But it's pretty serious.
"I don't think we'll ever get another car industry in Australia. The labour rate's too high, and I think we've lost the opportunity."
Many of the German and British manufacturers are subsidized by their governments, Mr Hardman pointed out. While the Australian government helped to subsidize General Motors and rival companies like Toyota and Ford, he can't see Holden ever coming back.
"I don't know what we'll get in that motor car range," Mr Hardman mused.
He believes Australian customers will be offered a limited number of Chevrolet Corvettes and the utility Silverado, perhaps even Cadillacs, but doubts they will be sold through the GM dealer.
"Somebody will purchase these things right-hand drive, and market to a limited high-price range."
READ MORE: Holden's demise a sign of the times
General Motors dealers might sell cars like the Opel or the Vauxhall, both badge-engineered under the Holden brand. Both are owned by the French Groupe PSA, which also owns Citroen and Peugeot.
The Transport Museum collection has about 10 Holdens, from earlier models (the original FX 48-215, the first car 'made in Australia, for Australia') to a 1978 model.
"We don't have anything in the Commodore range," Mr Hardman said. "So we probably should be looking for somebody that can fill that gap because the younger generation doesn't know much about the old Holdens. Certainly the EH model [manufactured in the mid-Sixties] is very popular for collectors.
"But if you don't have a Holden now, and you wish to, it's going to cost you. The values have gone up already."
A friend recently sold an EH Holden Premier on eBay for $30,000. Another car of the same make is being sold for $90,000.
"I don't know whether he expects to get that," Mr Hardman said, "but that's a hell of a gap for the same model car!"