Muscle News

Holden is gone but its parent General Motors will live on in Australia.

GM’s Oz future could be with the Walkinshaw Group, as Tickford gets together with Roush

In a deal that could be announced by the time you are reading this, the Walkinshaw Group is expected to represent GM in Australia. The plan was agged when the axing of Holden was announced on February 17, with references made to GM Specialty Vehicles (GMSV) in a media release and during a press conference.

“Although it’s not rmed up formally, our intent and our desire is to stay in the market, albeit in a different format and a different model with the GM Specialty Vehicles,” GM International Operations Senior Vice President Julian Blissett told the media.

While the Walkinshaw Group wasn’t named speci cally, the company itself and the family it’s named after have deep ties to both Holden and GM.

The late Tom Walkinshaw created Holden Special Vehicles and took over the brand’s touring car efforts after Holden’s polariser split with Peter Brock. Walkinshaw’s Australian lieutenant John Crennan (a former Holden exec) built the road and racing business into an amazingly successful enterprise.

In more recent times, since the closure of local manufacturing in 2017, Tom’s son Ryan Walkinshaw has led the evolution of HSV into a converter (or remanufacturer) of left-hand drive GM products to right-hand drive.

So far it’s converted several different models of the Chevrolet Silverado pick-up truck and the Camaro V8 coupe. It also converts RAM trucks under contract for Neville Crichton’s ASV (American Special Vehicles).

HSV also modi ed the Holden Colorado into the HSV SportsCat, although that was a right-hand drive vehicle imported from Thailand. GM has sold that plant and so that model now ceases to be.

Signi cantly, when former Holden boss and now GM President Mark Reuss visited Holden in 2018 he also toured the new Walkinshaw Park facility in Clayton and came away impressed with the work being done there.

When the time came to gure out what GM would do in Australia post-Holden, Reuss would have undoubtedly played a role.

He voiced his support for GMSV when the Holden announcement was made: “We do believe we have an opportunity to pro tably grow the specialty vehicle business and plan to work with our partner to do that.”

GMSV is expected to be a joint-venture between Walkinshaw Group and GM and its task initially will be exactly what HSV does now; take North American-built left-hand drive GM product and convert it to right-hand drive in Melbourne.

Those vehicles will then be distributed through

a slimmed down dealer network. Currently, HSV has 56 dealers nationwide.

GMSV’s focus will initially be on Chevrolet pick-ups, SUVs and performance vehicles. The new mid-engined C8 Chevrolet Corvette – whether it is converted here or gets the steering wheel moved to the right-side at Bowling Green – is expected to be part of the line-up.

Further out there has been speculation about the introduction of Cadillac and even electric vehicles. There is the capability at Walkinshaw Park to remanufacture more than 10,000 vehicles per annum.

Walkinshaw Group CEO Tim Jackson – notoriously cautious even at his most expansive moments – warned that every potential future product sits on the negotiation list right now.

“In our view our range continues, but what form that takes and where it brings in new model years and that sort of thing, that conversation is wrapped up in a lot of our discussions with GM.”

One thing to realise is that these vehicles are not going to be cheap. Importing them fully built up from North America, stripping them down, converting them and then rebuilding them adds a heck of a lot of cost.

Throw in the poor exchange rates for importers that we have right now and the whole thing gets a bit knife edge.

The most obvious example of that is Camaro. Jackson says there are no plans to remanufacture any more than the last few supercharged ZL1s that are going down the line now.

Clearly, the hope and expectation from the Australian side is that GM will provide some assistance on purchasing costs so Camaro can be part of the line-up.

It’s signi cant HSV launched the latest Silverado 1500 to the media and couldn’t furnish a price. It’s all mixed up in the bigger picture of how GMSV pans out.

“We are working with them [GM] on what the new world might look like,” said Jackson.

One things for sure, it’s going to look different…