The Statesman is a 4-door sedan from GM (General Motors), built from 1971 to 1985, as the oil crises and the first emissions rules rewired the industry. Under the bonnet: 202 cuin I6. Leo Pruneau drew it.
Where it came from
Statesman is an automotive marque created in 1971 by the Australian General Motors subsidiary, Holden. Statesman vehicles were sold through Holden dealerships, and were initially based on the mainstream Holden HQ station wagon platform, thereby providing more interior room and generally more luxurious features than their Holden-branded sedan siblings. Production ceased with the last of the WB series cars in January 1985. GM Holden reintroduced the range in 1990 with two long-wheelbase sedans; however, the cars were no longer marketed as Statesman by brand name, but instead as the Holden Statesman and the Holden Caprice.
In September 2010 with the "Series II" updating of the WM series, use of the long-serving Statesman name was discontinued. From 2011 to 2015 Holden's long wheelbase contenders were branded as the Holden Caprice and Holden Caprice V. From the 2016 model year, the Caprice was discontinued leaving the Caprice V as the last remaining Australian build long-wheelbase sedan. The Caprice V was discontinued in October 2017 as Holden closed down its Australian manufacturing operations.
Under the skin
Power comes from 202 cuin I6; other versions carried different engines, listed in the specification table below. These are manufacturer figures carried by Wikipedia and Wikidata, not road-test measurements.
In context
Its family tree is legible: it took over from the Holden Brougham; its successor was the Holden Statesman / Caprice; assembly was at Adelaide, South Australia. Its contemporaries in the catalogue — the Chevrolet Impala, the Suzuki Jimny, the Renault 5 — show what else the money bought that year. Nearby in the GM (General Motors) catalogue sit the 1955 Chevrolet and the 1957 Chevrolet.
What it costs now
MotorJury scores cars on the United States complaint and recall record, and the Statesman has none: too old, too rare, or never sold there. Its value today is a collector's question, decided by provenance and condition rather than by a class average.