The Corvette may not make it to NZ after all

Wednesday, 29 April 2020

The last lap for Holden is near - but could this spell the end of the road for General Motors?

After the untimely death of Holden earlier this year (gee, hasn't 2020 been good?) we thought that even though there won't be any badge-redeeming V8-powered rear-drive Commodore anymore, we can at least look forward to the mid-engined Chevrolet Corvette arriving under the new GMSV banner.

Or so we thought. News coming out of the US is claiming GM's executive director of programme management, Michelle Braun, 'recently issued a blanket order pausing all future car and truck development, including for the Corvette'.

The stoppage is a temporary response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic but, according to Car Advice, 'well-placed industry insiders believe there is little to no chance the Corvette will make it to Australia [and New Zealand] in the first half of 2021 as originally planned.' It might not even get here at all as priorities get shuffled post-coronavirus.

A mid-engined supercar without a supercar price tag? Sounds good... or rather, it did.

We were on track to get the new 'Vette, which was developed with right-hand drive production in mind right from the start, a task made much easier by the mid-engined architecture. Fewer obstacles in front of the driver would have made it easier for engineers to swap the cockpit over to the right.

**READ MORE:

Thank coronavirus for this not coming to New Zealand, in coupe and droptop forms.

* RHD Corvette likely still on its way down under

* What now for Holden owners?

The Walkinshaw Group, responsible for converting the Camaro to right-hand drive, is expected to front the new GMSV operation.

* Economy of scale killed Holden in the end

'Our team is totally revved up to build on Holden's performance legacy with the most technologically advanced Corvette ever built. We look forward to taking on the European and Japanese performance vehicles with some highly sophisticated American muscle,' Marc Ebolo, Managing Director of Holden New Zealand said at the time.

“When General Motors comes out of this crisis, they will want to allocate their engineering resources to the vehicles that can deliver the biggest profits in the shortest possible time… they need cashflow urgently,” Car Advice was told.

The industry insider added: “Before the world hit the brakes (due to Covid-19), General Motors was still committed to going ahead with the right-hand-drive Corvette, even with Holden being axed at the end of 2020”.

In any case, we should know about the future of the right-hook Corvette fairly soon, along with what will happen to General Motors in Australia and New Zealand.

It's rumoured the Walkinshaw Group will represent the brand here. The group already remanufacturers Camaros and Silverados for right-hand drive as well as some Ram trucks.

Walkinshaw will likely continue business as usual (as soon as it can) under the new General Motors Special Vehicles (GMSV) banner.

With any luck we'll get more on that in the next few weeks, along with what vehicles GMSV would be looking at importing and converting.