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Bruce Newton26 Jun 2015
NEWS

Mystery Holden sports car speculation continues

Corvette? Camaro? Monza? Plenty of questions, but no answers from Holden

GM Holden continues to stonewall about the identity of the sports car it has promised to deliver in Australia after the expiration of the locally-manufactured Commodore in late 2017.

At this week’s launch of the born-again, Holden-badged Insignia VXR, speculation about the two usual suspects -- the Chevrolet Corvette and Camaro -- continued, with another name joining the feeding frenzy: Monza.

The Monza was a sports coupe sold by Opel/Vauxhall in the 1970s and 1980s (it was also the name of a completely separate Chevrolet two-door in the 1970s) , but more recently General Motors’ European engineering and development arm has registered the name in a bunch of countries, including in Australia.

That registration followed on from a gullwing concept car dubbed Monza being revealed at the Frankfurt motor show in 2013. At the time it was presented as an indication of Opel styling themes for the next-gen Insignia model family -- including a crossover -- rather than a specific model.

But could the registration of the Monza name, which was made in April last year, hint at a third potential sports coupe option for Australia? Holden executive director of sales Peter Keley isn’t saying.

"That was a show car," Keley told motoring.com.au in NZ. "There have been no announcements around specifically that car coming into production or anything like that.

“It's a show car and definitely demonstrates where Opel is going as a brand itself, around design and the positioning of its products as well."

The speculation about Holden’s sports car future was triggered by GM International Operations boss Stefan Jacoby at the Detroit auto show in January when he told Australian media the company would soon be offering a sports car “which truly fulfils the requirements of a true Holden sports car”.

Asked if it would be a V8, he replied: “Most likely, yes”. Since then the language out of Holden has clarified V8 is definitely part of the package.

Because Jacoby said the car was not yet in production (remembering this was back in January), attention focussed on the upcoming generation-six Camaro, which made sense as a potentially affordable Holden rival for the Ford Mustang, which goes on sale here in December.

But with the new Camaro now launched, GM has been confirmed it is not being offered in right-hand drive – at least for the foreseeable future. Industry scuttlebutt suggests GM has decided the business case for conversion of the V8 to right-hand drive is too high for the small number of sales expected out of Australia, the UK, Japan et al.

Local vehicle converters like Performax have indicated they're unlikely to offer the new Camaro in Australia, as with previous generations, because they would not be able to compete with the sub-$45,000 starting price of Ford's Mustang. But it could be the opportunity Holden Special Vehicles needs to keep its high-performance portfolio operating post-Commodore.

Business owner Ryan Walkinshaw and MD Tim Jackson were in Detroit only weeks ago for meetings with GM.

Walkinshaw later described those meetings as “awesome” on social media, but declined a request from motoring.com.au for an interview while he was in Australia this week. He has previously talked about developing a Chevrolet Special Vehicles business based on Camaro .

A challenge for HSV and any other company interested in converting the Camaro for the Australian market is the price Ford Australia has put on the V8 Mustang, which starts at just $54,990.

So that has left the exotic Corvette supercar as the car many industry observers believe Holden will bring to Australia, even though it doesn’t tally with Jacoby’s original statements because it was already in production when he spoke.

Of course he could've been referring to the next-gen Corvette, which could be produced in RHD, but it’s hard to see how the Corvette can be classified as anything but a Chev. A “true Holden sports car” actually has four doors, given its heritage with sports sedans.

Despite those misgivings there is no doubt Corvette is the most likely candidate, barring something as yet unknown appearing from left-field.

So if it’s the Corvette it’s going to cost about $150,000 and attract only a handful of Australians a year, which helps explains why Holden dealers are said to have been vocal in their calls for the Camaro.

So what does Keley say about all that?

"We've got no further comment, apart from the fact we're bringing out a sports car," he said. "Obviously there's speculation about two different cars. I could make a case to you right now – without confirming either one – as to be quite plausible. It could be either one.

"It's been announced that there's no right-hand drive version [of the Camaro] at the moment, but does that mean that there's no right-hand drive [variant] ever?

"At the same time, Corvette has a new model at some point in time coming out as well. Maybe the timing of that works better from a right-hand drive point of view... from a launch. Both could be plausible stories."

And if we bring the Monza back into the discussion? Well, Holden has said it will be increasingly reliant on Opel’s roll-out of new products in the coming years (with a third of its range – which will swell by 24 new or facelifted models by 2020 -- confirmed to be German-sourced), but would Opel actually develop a sports car with a V8 engine in this age of fuel economy increases and CO2 emissions decreases?

And back in January at Detroit Jacoby was asked if the forthcoming sports car was based on the Monza concept and he said it wasn’t.

So Monza might be coming and it might be sports car, but the chances of it being the V8 sports car seem off beam. Besides, if you had a two-door sports coupe with a name starting with ‘M’ in the Holden range, wouldn’t it be a Monaro?

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