Sydney 1998
Holden Commodore Coupe
The Commodore Coupe concept was a total shock for all but a handful of Holden staffers and execs when it was revealed at Darling Harbour. It completely dominated the show, obliterating the AU Ford Falcon launch in the process.
Based on the new VT Commodore sedan, the Coupe was the reborn Monaro’s basis and inspiration. Very little about the design changed from concept to production car. Both Ferlazzo and Hughes are in solidarity in crediting Simcoe as being its creator.
Ferlazzo: “We could all see there was a coupe in the VT, but Mike decided to act on it. He owned that one. As legend will tell you, he worked up some tape drawings at home just to get some proportions. He came back into the studio with it and said ‘guys, we are going to do this, don’t tell anyone’ and then engaged some of the designers to do it.”
Hughes: “We were doing Monaro sketches before Mike did his tape drawings, we even teased a few on the wall during the VT launch. But because we were all drawing VT so much they all looked like VTs with two-doors. They were pretty poor, actually. Then Mike brought that tape drawing in and just rolled it out and he’d changed and got the proportions right. It was like ‘you bastard, you’ve nailed it.’
“Having said that, the hard design work was done during VT. Richard did the rearend of VT and I was on the front and the surfacing was quite complex. We just carried that over, we just cut and shut the bloody thing into a coupe.”
The ip-top Utester took the lifestyle theme started by the Sandman to a whole new level. Based on the SS V8 ute, the Utester had a removable glass roof, a rear window that slid out of sight and a hard tonneau cover with two aero forms inspired by sports car history. A vibrant yellow-and-black paint scheme completed the look.
Hughes even dyed his hair yellow for the presentation!
Ferlazzo: “It was basically a Corvette with a tray. It really made that point you don’t have to get something into production to make it worthwhile. Maybe nothing made it into production out of this car but you can see in later years getting this sporty feel into the ute came about in the VE.”
Hughes: “Utester was my design. I think it was another Mike ight of fancy. He wanted to do a convertible ute, but where do you put the roof? Andrew [Smith] did a few sketches early because he’d just come off VU and then I migrated to style it. We had a double ip thing in the tub to put the roof in, then we sourced a Corvette roof and the pins to make it work. Then we just went so hard to create that back in about three weeks.
“There was some really nice stuff in it. It had a hand-fabricated exhaust and it all worked well.
“That was another real fun project and I think it expresses what Holden Design was about at that time; maximum impact for pretty little input.”