60 january 2018 motormag.com.au
TJ: “We’d lived a fairly comfortable existence in some
respects. We’d spent our time waiting for the next
Commodore to come along, so we really hadn’t pushed
our own envelope in terms of what more could we
do. This came along and kicked us into gear. The
Commodore is changing, it’s not going to be made
locally any more, we have to look at a different way of
doing things. And the market’s changing. You only have
to look at the growth in the light-commercial segment
and how the premium end of that market is really
growing and evolving. Part of every business is to evolve
and develop into new areas.”
Do you think HSV’s traditional buyers make the
move with you?
TJ: “I think it’ll be a bit of both. If you’re only in the
market for a four-door, rear-wheel drive V8, we’re not
going to get you. But if you’re in the market for a car that
is exciting to drive, meet your needs, makes a statement
about who you are, I think we have a great portfolio to
capture you.”
Did you look at a high-performance HSV
version of the ZB Commodore?
TJ: “We have looked at it, we continue to look at it.
The right solution hasn’t presented itself as yet. But
the world evolves and things change, so we never
completely put something to sleep. Situations change,
opportunities present themselves all the time, so our
job is to have our eyes and ears open, and always be
looking for that next opportunity.”
If you’d been able to do a twin-turbo V6 four-
wheel drive ZB, how good would it have been?
TJ: “I think it would have been very good.”
Has the market for the vehicles that HSV has
traditionally built and excelled in, become too
small?
RW: “We excel in being a niche design/engineering/
manufacturing house. What we excel in is what we
deliver to develop a product. It’s our design, engineering
and manufacturing expertise, and our ability to bring
good product to market. That’s what we excel at. What
we’re doing is looking into new products to put that
experience into.”
When it happened, what was your initial
reaction to the announcement of the end of
the locally made Commodore?
RW: “When you have uncertainty in any business
on what the future holds, that can be uncomfortable.
But looking back on it now, it was probably one of
the best things that ever happened to us. We had a
very comfortable existence back then. We knew what
products were coming, we had a great relationship with
Holden working on that product, we knew we had a
strong customer base and we knew how to make that
product really sing.
“What it really did was it forced us to look at ourselves
internally and look at the world externally again, and
say, ‘what do we want to become? Do we want to
become more or do we just want to continue to try to
do what we have been doing?’ And our answer was, ‘no,
we want to be more’. We want to be more ambitious,
we want to be bigger, we want to grow and we want
to do more exciting products in more different market
segments. We also just don’t want to be an Australian
design, engineering and manufacturing house. We want
to start looking at how we can grow internationally, how
Iconic, HSV-tuned
Aussie specials are set
to be replaced with
American muscle.
You’ll be able to buy
a Chevy Silverado if
size matters to you,
or a right-hand-drive
converted Camaro for
about $80,000