HSV to live on without Commodore
Holden Special Vehicles will live on beyond the death of the Australian-made Commodore. But it will be a very different business.
The Colorado ute looms as the most likely next project for the Melbourne-based performance car operation, and its CEO Tim Jackson hasn’t ruled out SUVs and other models within the Holden range getting an HSV makeover.
Speaking at the launch of the final Australian-made Commodore range, headlined by the return of the GTSR range and the flagship GTSR W1, Jackson told Drive that HSV was certain to live on beyond local car manufacturing.
While HSV has focused on the Commodore throughout its 30 years in operation it has made brief forays into the small car market with the Astra SV1800 in 1988 and VXR in 2007 and the Jackaroo SUV in the early 1990s.
Jackson revealed the future will involve a wider variety of models.
‘‘We think there is [a market for HSV beyond Commodore],’’ Jackson said.
‘‘If you put us to the side for a moment and look at the industry and how that has changed over a 10-year period, when you look at the strength of Commodore back in 2004, 2005 and even 2006. You look at how much the world has changed and the different categories that have popped up and become more popular and dominant within the industry.
‘‘We tended to find our customer wanted a couple of things. They want an exciting, aspirational vehicle, so the question is ‘can we deliver that?’ I think if we can deliver that then I think we’ll have a business and a market.
‘‘The other one is attitude, and we talk about that a lot. Cars can be fun to drive and a little bit what we tend to see is over the last 10 years the fun has come out of life a little bit. But we still see there is a customer who loves driving cars, wants an exciting car to drive and they exist is other categories, not just four-door sedans.
‘‘If we want to be critical of ourselves we’ve been comfortable, we’ve pushed this platform [Commodore] really, really hard but we haven’t pushed into other platforms aggressively.
‘‘So our sense is if we’re building exciting cars for a customer who wants to have fun and they love driving, we think that customer exists in multiple categories.’’
Asked directly if HSV’s future direction will include the Colorado ute, given the popularity of the segment and cross-town rival Tickford’s decision to re-enter the custom car market with the Ford Ranger, Jackson wasn’t willing to confirm plans yet.
‘‘We’re talking about Holden about what future product plans look like,’’ he said.
A move into the dual-cab ute market appears inevitable, however, with more of HSV’s traditional buyers interested in the segment.
Jackson was more willing to discuss the booming SUV segment, admitting it is a likely target for HSV given the increasing popularity of performance models.
‘‘I think the right one could be [an HSV],’’ he said. ‘‘ We see there’s logically a transition period. I’ll use the Jeep [Grand Cherokee] SRT8 [as an example], they’ve found a market for the right product. I’m not saying we’ve got the right tools at the moment to do that. But we shouldn’t limit our thinking.
‘‘If we limit our thinking to ‘we’re an Australian car company that builds four-door sedans’ then we’re dead at the end of the year. We think we can take the capabilities we’ve got and apply them in new ways.’’