First ACDelco store opens as GMSV thinks beyond Holden

Reports of the imminent demise of the Holden name appear to have been over-hyped – or at least premature. General Motors Specialty Vehicles (GMSV) has confirmed that the Holden Service Centres are here to stay, but will begin experimenting with the ACDelco brand as a stand-alone service and parts business, beginning with a pilot store in Queensland.

The new ACDelco store opened in Maroochydore opened in June and will be used to assess the viability of the brand as a multi-make service and parts business, free from any direct connection to Holden. As reported last week, there have been rumours that GMSV wants ACDelco to take over from the Holden Service Centre branding, but the company is adamant that the Holden name is here to stay, at least in the short-term. Instead Holden will carry on alongside GMSV’s plans for ACDelco as they assess its potential.

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“The ACDelco pilot store is an opportunity to ascertain customer engagement with a most-makes, most-models service operation,” a GMSV spokesperson told Torquecafe. “We’re interested to see the results of the pilot store, and those of any other initial stores which might be established in the short term in order to develop a long term all makes strategy. This is separate to the Holden Certified Service network which is still one of the most extensive in Australia and NZ, and will be here for many years to come to support the 1.6m Holden vehicles still on the road.”

ACDelco is General Motors parts and servicing business but provides parts for a wide variety of makes and models, so GMSV is using this pilot store as a “toe-in-the-water exercise” to see if customers will engage with it in the same way they do with similar independently branded servicing outlets, such as Ultra Tune, mycar and Pedders.

While Holden won’t disappear yet, with GMSV committed to covering the more than 1.6 million Holdens still on the road in Australia and New Zealand for the next decade, GMSV is clearly open to a future in Australia with ACDelco as a permanent stand-alone brand.