IT HAS certainly been the end of an era in the past week, with the closing of the Holden factory at Elizabeth in South Australia.

It's a sad day but one that's been coming for a long time, thanks removal of protection policies for Aussie manufacturers and greater exposure to the free market.

In the end, as a consumer, it means cheaper vehicles for us.

But at what long term cost to the country? In dollars and heritage?

I started off life in the '60s and '70s as a Holden kid.

Various Holdens dominated the driveways of my early life.

So, it was in most of Australia with Holden alone producing almost half a million vehicles per year in the early 70s. The peak of its production.

The mere mention of the word Ford, let alone Toyota or Datsun would have been enough to make my father sit up and cough in his chair. And I was the same.

But something changed all that. My dad drove a dark green LC Torana GTR.

One day he was unfortunate enough to be confronted with a car heading at him on the wrong side of a windy mountain road and it struck the Torana head-on.

Dad was OK but the Torana was a total write-off.

The good old Holden "red” motor ended up on the front passenger seat.

Luckily no one was in that seat or they would have been crushed.

We went to the local Holden dealership in the small town where I grew up.

Nowadays it's just a garage with the "local” Holden dealership now 20km up the road on the fringe of a larger regional centre.

This was in 1975. I remember the big showroom full of new Holdens.

What caught my eye was a Sandman panel van. Bright shiny colour, with Sandman in foot high letters across the tailgate.

I remember jumping about in the back of it and trying to convince Dad to buy one, but he would have more likely bought a pink push-bike than some lairy "surfie sin bin”.

At that time Holden buyers were spoiled for choice.

As well as the Sandman vans and utes, now highly collectible, there was the HJ Monaro coupe, available with 350 engine option and the legendary Torana L34 SLR5000.

In today's market, those classic cars, even as barn finds, can fetch more than $50,000 and a 1974 L34 recently made $100,000 at auction.

Even the Sandman has made a comeback in popularity, so much so a couple was murdered over one in recent years.

What did Dad buy with all this choice? A "pus” yellow Gemini.

Despite all that classic, fire- breathing metal being on display and up for grabs in the Kiama motors showroom back in 1975 Dad didn't buy any of them.

He told me once, when I was showing him the prices they were getting for those cars now, that he had actually gone in there wanting a Torana, but he didn't like the look of the wider bodied ones, especially one with the big flared wheel arches. Not after his sleek and pointy GTR.

Not that the Gemini was a bad car. I've even owned one or two. I just lament what could have been under the house with a sheet over it, waiting for me to turn 17.

And people wonder why I like Fords now.