Melbourne 2000 -

Holden ECommodore

The ECOmmodore was a VT Commodore sedan with a 40mm lower roof, a longer wheelbase and a more aerodynamically friendly rear-end. The result is a four-door coupe as good looking as any MercedesBenz CLS.

Intended to improve aerodynamics and reduce fuel use, the revisions cut drag by somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent. A petrol-electric hybrid powertrain went under the bonnet.

Ferlazzo: “That wasn’t really a design show car. That was to assist engineering and [legendary Holden engineer] Laurie Sparke who was leading a supercapacitor project. He came to design and said ‘we’ve got this great engineering thing we’re trying to execute, have you got some excitement you could add to it on the outside?’

“It would have been Michael who said ‘why don’t we make it into a four-door coupe?’ So it has the Coupe concept roof, windscreen and rear screen but with four doors. And it looks pretty good.

“The compromise in the design is headspace. You can either live with it or you can’t.”

Cross8

Rather than a ight of fancy, this was very much a preview of the Crewman 4x4 dual cab due to hit production in 2003. The Adventra wagon and One-Tonner ute were also part of this family of spin-offs. The Cross8 name referenced the new locally-developed all-wheel drive system.

Based on the Statesman luxury sedan long wheelbase platform, the Cross8 was overshadowed by Ford’s preview of its forthcoming Territory, the R7 SUV.

One thing that wasn’t obvious at the preview was how cramped the rear seats were in the dual cab. It was a aw that became a constant criticism during its brief production life.

Ferlazzo: “They are the ones we call precursor show cars. Cross8 and the Crewman. They are things that are coming, but it puts them out there about a year in advance to build anticipation. They serve a different purpose but they are still a concept.

Hughes: “I got beaten in my design pitch for the VY Commodore, but the good thing out of that was I got to muck around with the Adventra and the Crewman. That also meant I got to do the [Cross8] show car, but in the end it was just the production car with a couple of little extras. In this case, the concept was after the fact.

“It had some nice things. We explored bash plates and it used some different vents we used later on different stuff. But it was compromised in the rear seat.”