Back Australia: How Holden’s still helping utes overtake V8s
Australia’s love affair with big utes shows no signs of slowing down and it is paying tribute to failed icons of the past.
Australian petrolheads responsible for the nation’s greatest muscle cars didn’t pack up their tools when Holden and Ford shut down their Commodore and Falcon factories.
Instead, they pivoted to a new generation of tough utes and pick-up trucks.
Ryan Walkinshaw was born the same year his father Tom Walkinshaw founded Holden Special Vehicles.
When his dad died, Mr Walkinshaw took up the reins to build HSV’s final supercharged icons before shifting gears to utes.
“People that were buying Commodores and Falcons back in the day are now buying HiLuxes and Rangers and Amaroks and D-Maxes, stuff like that,” he told news.com.au as part of News Australia’s Back Australia campaign.
“All we’re really doing is following our customers.”
Walkinshaw Automotive has developed hotted-up versions of the VW Amarok, Mitsubishi Triton and Isuzu D-Max sold through official dealer networks.
It is also responsible for re-engineering American cars such as the RAM 1500, Chevrolet Silverado, Toyota Tundra and GMC Yukon from left to right-hand-drive as part of the largest automotive manufacturing operation in the country.
“Out of the fire pit of Australian automotive manufacturing we’ve managed to become a bit of a phoenix for the industry and have grown enormously in that time, which is a really great story for Australian manufacturing,” Mr Walkinshaw said.
“It’s something we’re very proud of because it shows that we can still produce vehicles here in Australia.
“We can still be a world leader in design and engineering in this industry.”
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The business has just built a 100,000 square metre plant in South Dandenong where up to 1500 people will work on up to eight production lines turning out 12,000 cars each year.
Across town, Bernie Quinn and his team at Premcar pivoted from hot-rodding Ford Falcons to building tougher versions of the Nissan Navara and Patrol.
The “Warrior” versions of these cars are rugged, more capable and muscular-looking machines that have attracted more than 15,000 customers.
Mr Quinn said customers who used to own Bathurst-bred V8s now want to conquer the bush.
“All those people who customised their Ford Falcon XR8 or FPV GT or HSV GTS and went for the ultimate version are now doing the same thing, but with dual cab utes or full size pick-ups,” he said.
“Since the cessation of the FPV (Ford performance Vehicles) business we’ve been forced to diversify.
“It’s been a traumatic but ultimately successful period … and we’re now almost as big as we were when FPV was in its heyday.”
Premcar’s big switch was driven by observing the trend toward high-riding four-wheel-drives and utes years ago.
“It’s understanding that customers use their vehicle for everything and anything — from shopping at Coles or dropping kids at school, through to off-road camping or driving across the Simpson Desert, we understand the massive bandwidth of use cases,” Mr Quinn said.
“While there is some negativity surrounding the pick-up trucks from an environmental perspective, the thing is you drive one hour or even 45 minutes out of Melbourne and that’s the vehicle that suits people’s lifestyle.
“It is a massively useful tool. It can carry nearly a ton in the tray, tow a three and a half ton caravan, seat five people, and is easy to drive around suburbs. “In terms of bandwidth of capability, you don’t get much better than that.”
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Contractual agreements with automotive giants prevent Premcar and Walkinshaw Automotive from revealing what is around the corner.
But you can bet that enormous investment in Australian facilities and ongoing work with the likes of Nissan, Toyota, RAM, General Motors and other manufacturers will make for many more models on the road ahead.
This article is part of the Back Australia series, which was supported by Australian Made Campaign, Harvey Norman, Westpac, Bunnings, Coles, TechnologyOne, REA Group, Cadbury, R.M.Williams, Qantas, Vodafone and BHP.
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