Five years on from the demise of the locally built Holden, Walkinshaw Automotive Group (WAG) is in an even better position than it was while producing Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) models.
That’s according to WAG director Ryan Walkinshaw, who told CarsGuide the company’s right-hand-drive remanufacturing activities for the Ram 1500, Chevrolet Silverado and upcoming Toyota Tundra, as well as development work on the flagship W-series Volkswagen Amarok, has allowed them to go from strength to strength.
“We’ve come a long way in the last sort of 12 years. We’ve gone from being about 280 employees 12 years ago when I started,” he said.
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“[We had} a really nice successful business in HSV doing good volume of 3000 units a year, and now thanks to programs like VW Amarok, our growth has been quite impressive, particularly in the last sort of four or five years since after Holden closed down [local manufacturing of Commodore].
“We’ve gone from one OE partnership to multiply early partnerships, we’ve got fantastic new facilities, we’ve got second-to-none engineering facilities and infrastructure here in Australia.”
“One of the bonuses of a lot of the automotive brands closing down, was we were able to cherry pick a lot of the best staff from Toyota, Ford and Holden, which has allowed us to become the biggest and best automotive business in Australia in our eyes.”
“Now we’re at 1500 employees and we’re doing 12,000 units this year, and we see that growing significantly over the next few years as more programs come online.”
Mr Walkinshaw was also quick to point out that this means local vehicle development and manufacturing is still alive and well in Australia, despite no production models being assembled here.
“Our success story in Victoria and Australia, in our view, is a success story for Australian manufacturing,” he said.
“We can still do this here, it’s different to what it used to be, it’s not the same as what we had with Toyota, Holden and Ford, but it doesn’t mean that we can’t have a fantastic large market doing good volume, employing lots of people with a good supplier base.
“And still have an automotive industry that we’re proud of. It’s not the same, it’s different, but it’s still something that should be respected and should be appreciated and should be invested in.”
Walkinshaw aren’t the only local engineering outfit operating in Australia, however, with Premcar designing and developing the local Warrior program for Nissan that encompasses the Navara ute and soon-to-launch Patrol SUV.
Likewise, RMA Holdings will partner with Ford to right-hand-drive remanufacture the full-sized F-150 pick-up from mid-2023, competing directly against the Walkinshaw-reassembled Ram 1500, Chevrolet Silverado and upcoming Toyota Tundra.
Ford Australia also employs a circa-2000-strong engineering team who worked on the new-generation Ranger ute and Everest SUV, and will be moved to other projects for overseas markets now those two crucial models are on sale.