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Bruce Newton18 Oct 2017
NEWS

GM killed Holden SUV

Zeta crossover could have been crucial in preserving Australian manufacturing

Plans for Holden to develop a rival for the Ford Territory SUV that would have been sold here and overseas were scuppered by General Motors in the USA.

Instead, GM told local Holden executives it would build the vehicle, a commitment it never fulfilled.

Former Holden insiders believe if they had been allowed to proceed with the development of the SUV locally it could have been crucial in preserving local manufacturing.

The SUV would have been based on the locally-developed Zeta architecture that underpins the VF Commodore, which goes out of production on Friday when Holden’s Elizabeth assembly plant closes.

It was part of a ‘global Zeta’ plan that would have seen the architecture underpinning vehicles from almost every part of the GM empire, including the Cadillac luxury brand.

Zeta global was integral to a strategy plan first developed and implemented during Peter Hanenberger’s 1999-2003 reign at Holden and was designed to ensure the company remained as a manufacturer for decades to come.

Other aspects of the plan included a reborn rear-wheel drive small car – which never made it past the TT36 Torana concept car – and a still-born scheme to market Holden in selected international markets under its own name.

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Zeta global foundered when the Global Financial Crisis stuck in 2008, General Motors went bankrupt and the US tightened fuel consumption regulations.

In the end the Chevrolet Camaro was the only rebodied global Zeta model to ever be built. North America’s Pontiac G8 and Chevrolet SS and PPV police car were obvious Commodore and long-wheelbase Caprice derivatives.

The SUV was the subject of a design study by Czech-born Holden designer Ondrej Koromhaz. Unlike the previous generation Commodore-based Adventra, the Zeta SUV would have been a stand-alone model with its own sheetmetal and rear- and all-wheel drive capability like the Territory, which Ford built at its now defunct Broadmeadows plant from 2004-20016.

“There was an SUV and that was probably one of the defining moments around global Zeta and it was probably one of the defining moments around Holden’s success in Australia,” former Holden advanced vehicle design chief Mark Sheridan told motoring.com.au.

Sheridan, an English engineer who worked at Land Rover and BMW, joined Holden in 2000 to lead the design of the Zeta architecture, then moved on to global Zeta before becoming chief engineer of the VF Commodore program. He no longer works in the automotive industry.

“Ford made a really good decision around Territory … We looked at cars exactly like that way back on Zeta and the GM leadership at the time said no.

“They said ‘we can do these better and more efficiently because they are the types of cars we do, off North American architectures rather than the Zeta architecture.”

Asked if the vehicle was ever built by GM, Sheridan shook his head. His version of events was backed up by other Holden executives of the time familiar with the SUV plan.

“That (Zeta SUV) would have given us a portfolio that would have given us a much bigger stretch across the marketplace and that would have given people a choice,” Sheridan said.

“If that had been allied with the Zeta architecture or something that we manufactured in Adelaide, then Adelaide wouldn’t have had the volume issues and the productivity issues and the cost issues it had.”

Sheridan said at its height he remembered a chart that showed 15 global Zeta derivatives.

The death of the global Zeta SUV embodied a struggle by Holden in that era to access GM’s strong line-up of North American SUVs and pick-ups.

Only now are they starting to reach here, with the Chevrolet-sourced Equinox medium SUV on sale this year and the Toyota Kluger-rivalling Acadia coming in mid-2018.

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