The Holden era is coming to an end, but will the red-blue rivalry continue?

It’s been a long time coming, but Holden will take its final bow at Bathurst this weekend before disappearing from the Supercars for good.

You’d be forgiven for feeling as though we’ve been here before. Really the grieving process started way back in 2020, when Holden announced it would end its factory backing of Commodore teams and then subsequently shuttered completely, ending a century-long chapter of Australian automotive history.

Of course the Holden Commodore has raced on since, but as a silhouette in the truest sense of the word, resembling something no longer present.

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But that hasn’t mattered to most fans. Not really. The sight of the lion badge pounding around Mount Panorama has been a comforting sign of continuity. After all, Holden’s won 35 times at Bathurst, more than half of all Australian Touring Car Championship races ever held there, to go with its 590 race victories and 22 championships.

“The emotion and the social fabric of what actually has gone with Holden branding at that venue is incredible,” Mark Skaife told Fox Sports about Holden’s links to Bathurst. “When you think about [Peter] Brock and you think about the wins over the years — I think the fan expectation and the custodianship of representing Holden at Bathurst, nothing’s more powerful. It’s unbelievable.

“You think about what Holden means to Australians and New Zealanders. When I think of it I go, ‘football, meat pies, kangaroos and Holden cars’.”

But intrinsic to Holden’s place in Australian sporting folklore is its rivalry with Ford. Every hero needs a villain — Holden could be either depending on who you are — and it was in its battles with the blue oval that its identity was really forged.

“If you think about Holden’s [Bathurst] first win with Bruce McPhee in a Wyong Motors Monaro way back in the late 60s, that’s where the rivalry began, and the brand has gone to just this iconic status,” Skaife said. “Its Collingwood versus Carlton, it’s Labor versus Liberal, it’s Ford versus Holden.”

Garth Tander, the four-time Bathurst winner and 2007 champion, said the brand couldn’t be separated from Australia itself.

“Talk about the fabric of Australian society, and Holden is intrinsically linked to that,” he said. “So to have that honour to represent the Holden brand at the mecca, at Mount Panorama, and especially in the factory car, the HRT car — I mean, I won Bathurst the first time in the GRM car, which was a Holden, but it’s a whole other story when you win it for the factory team at HRT. Just what that represented was just immense.

“I just feel like it’s an honour, an absolute honour, and I’m really, really proud to have been part of the Holden story over the journey.

“Everyone’s got a Holden story. It doesn’t matter if you’re a ford fan; everyone’s still got a Holden story, and I think that just speaks volumes to how much it means to Australians and New Zealanders.”

All undeniably true.

So what happens when Bathurst’s finished, the final wheel is turned in Adelaide in December and this era of Supercars come to an end?

In a sense we have continuity. General Motors owned Holden long before the Australian Touring Car Championship was first awarded and will back the entry of the Chevrolet Camaro from next year, when the sport will finally introduce its Gen3 regulations.

The Camaro will battle the facelifted Ford Mustang in a duel between two evocative names — and Ford fans will be pleased to know the Mustang will at last look like a Mustang, no longer needing to be contorted to the silhouette chassis designed for the Falcon.

There is the spectre of an old rivalry in all of this. The Chevrolet Camaro raced against the Ford Mustang as far back as 1967, and in 1971 they engaged in a titanic struggle for the championship.

Bob Jane took steered his Camaro to title glory against Allan Moffat’s Mustang, by just six points.

Jane did the double in 1972, though that was the last title the nameplate won. Over the course of Chevrolet’s ATCC entries it collected 10 wins and five poles.

What we don’t know is whether that’s enough to sustain the rivalry we know and cherish today.

There was a real homegrown connection to the Commodore and Falcon, both Australian-designed and Australian-built cars. Even in the silhouette era there was at least a visible connection between road and track.

Houses were divided by whether they had Commodores or Falcons in their driveways. It was a way of life as much as a sporting passion.

You can’t buy a Chevrolet Camaro in Australia, with manufacturer right-hand-drive conversions long since ceased, and soon you may not be able to buy one anywhere in the world, with widespread reports that the nameplate will be retired in the next few years. What that would mean for the Camaro in the Supercars remains to be seen.

Even the Mustang as we know it may not be long for this world, with considerable speculation Ford’s electrification push could see the iconic brand go electric-only by the end of the decade.

Neither outcome excludes these cars being fielded in the Supercars championship, but it puts further distance between the road and the track.

But what doubts exist about the Gen3 era are comfortably neutralised by the on-track product we can expect.

The new-generation car is a real back-to-basics concept. They’ll have dramatically reduced levels of downforce without compromising power, which will mean they’re much more of a handful to drive. It’ll also mean racing at close quarters will be much easier, hinting at an even better spectacle.

Drivers with that sometimes seemingly supernatural feel for the car will find themselves with more opportunities to express that ability in what will be a more spectacular formula.

And while we may finally be transitioned away from the Commodore-Falcon era, there is some true continuity elsewhere.

Consider that this weekend Dick Johnson Racing will reach the unprecedented milestone of 1000 races.

Walkinshaw Andretti United, the former Tom Walkinshaw and Holden Racing Team entry, isn’t too far behind and will strike 906 races this weekend. Brad Jones Racing, which has competed and won in seemingly every Australian motorsport discipline, will accumulate 703 starts. Even Triple Eight is on the cusp of 600 races.

That’s some serious history. And with closer and more spectacular racing on the cards, not to mention the potential for new manufacturers to join, there’s a lot of scope for those rivalries to develop further.

Will the old red-blue rivalry continue? Certainly it will always run deep in the veins for some, and sport at its best always involves an element of tribalism.

But the Holden-Ford rivalry as we know it is at an end. It’ll be neither good nor bad; it’ll just be different. But be sure to savour the final moments while you can.