No Holden Manufacturing Could Mean No Walkinshaw in Australia

In December of last year, General Motors announced officially that Holden manufacturing will be wound down and will end in 2017. GM officially sites the strength of the Australian dollar as the reason for leaving. While it’s good that the Australian dollar is stronger, the cost of manufacturing products for a foreign business has risen to as much as 65%. So, if it don’t make Aussie dollars, it won’t make sense to stay.

Walkinshaw Performance is Holden Special Vehicles, in which they not only run the V8 Supercars for Holden they also tune the HSV versions of the Commodore sedans. Since no manufacturing of Holdens and Commodores in Australia, it puts business plans out the window if you are a Holden-specific tuner. However, there are rumors surfacing that HSV may become something new and may not be in Australia anymore. Ryan Walkinshaw appears to have no plans to leave GM products and with Holden manufacturing moving to the US, it may be possible for our own version of HSV to come to the US.

Do you look forward to a “Chevrolet Special Vehicles” here in the US or are you happy with the Z-series lineup from Chevrolet?