DETROIT MOTOR SHOW: Sexy new Buick won't become a Holden

The prospects of the beautiful Buick Avista concept morphing into a new-generation Holden Monaro are being downplayed inside and outside General Motors.

Instead, Chevrolet's next-generation mid-engined Corvette remains the most logical known possibility of sitting in Holden dealerships as the sports car General Motors has promised to deliver Australians.

Another Chevrolet — the new Camaro — continues to be a chance, but is not scheduled for RHD production and may not arrive for years, leaving under a cloud the identity of the 'Holden sports car' first alluded to by GM International Operations boss Stefan Jacoby at the Detroit show in January 2015.

The surprise reveal of the rear-wheel drive 300kW twin-turbo V6 Avista on Sunday night in Detroit understandably had Australian automotive outlets — including motoring.com.au — speculating this was Jacoby’s mysterious sports car.

The idea makes sense since GM Europe is expected to reveal a closely related new-generation Opel GT at the Geneva show in March and Holden has said more than a third of the 24 new models it will release by 2020 will come from Opel in Germany.

On the plus side of the argument the Avista is based on the same Alpha architecture as the latest Camaro and that means it is ‘package protected’ for right-hand drive.

But unlike the Camaro the Avista is yet to be green-lighted for production and sadly may never be.

Twenty four hours after it was first shown and in the wake of various ‘Buick must build it’ stories in US media, authoritative industry journal Automotive News said Avista almost certainly won’t be built.

“China isn’t much of a coupe market,” wrote AN journalist Mike Colias. “Considering that country accounted for around 80 per cent of Buick’s 1.2 million vehicle sales in 2015, conversations about Buick product planning typically start and end with China.

“What about Opel? Buick increasingly shares models with its European cousin, the latest example being the Cascada convertible that hits Buick’s US showrooms this month.

“But I doubt prospective Opel volumes would be enough to make General Motors’ bean counters’ eyes light up.

“That leaves the US, where relatively low-volume Buick already will have a coupe in the form of the Cascada drop-top.”

Colias described the Avista as a “tease” and a “buzz generator”, something GM global product boss – and former Holden chief – Mark Reuss seemed to go along with when asked about Avista by motoring.com.au.

“First and foremost it is gorgeous,” he said.

“This is still an exciting business, people care about the way the car looks and we are going to flex our design muscles here and we are going to do it regularly.

“We know it’s a gorgeous car and we are going to get people talking about it and if people are talking about it that’s a good thing.”

But when asked if Avista was Jacoby’s Holden sports car his enthusiasm ended.

“You should ask him because he’s the one who made that comment,” Reuss countered.

Even if Avista is approved for production, ‘package protection’ is only the first step to gaining business case approval for right-hand drive.

As the Camaro has already shown in the current Alpha and previous Zeta generations, making that estimated $50-$100 million investment has previously proved too costly for General Motors to justify.

Executives as high as chairman and CEO Mary Barra and president Dan Amman recently promised, GM will be more willing to spend on right-hand drive programs, but they have stressed it is not a universal commitment.

So that leaves the high-priced Corvette — either the current front-engine rear-drive version or the mooted mid-engined supercar – as the most likely subject of Jacoby’s hints. The Camaro is more likely to surface in Australia when it undergoes its next generational change early next decade.

There is of course still the possibility of the as-yet-unseen Opel sports car, which could revive the Monza name and should emerge looking similar to the Avista concept, but the same RHD investment issues will apply to its German sister model, if it reaches production.

What muddies the water and keeps Aussie media looking for a solution other than Corvette and Camaro is Jacoby’s description of the sports car as a Holden. Insiders at GM are emphatic there is no way either car would ever grace a local showroom without the Chevy bowtie badge firmly in place.

Given the iconic status of both cars that’s understandable and would probably be a marketing plus in Australian Holden showrooms anyway.

There’s another facet to all this and that’s the fundamental change Holden undertakes in the next few years with the end of local production and the locally-built Commodore, a model crowned by a range of affordable V8 rear-wheel drive sports sedans.

The simple truth — as Jacoby rammed home at Frankfurt last year — is that traditional, affordable, big GM V8 performance cars will become a thing of the past for Australians once Holden ceases production in Adelaide in 2017 and replaces the Commodore with a rebadged version of the next Opel Insignia, imported from Europe.

If Holden is to make the transition to importer it must break with that past and embrace a new personality built primarily around Opel four-cylinder – and some V6 – small and medium passenger cars and SUVs, with a smattering of other vehicles sourced from other parts of the GM empire.