When Holden produced its last car in Australia in October 2017, it signalled the end of local full-vehicle production, following the closure of Toyota and Ford’s factories in the 12 months prior.
It not only brought an end to car production as we knew it, but also threw a spanner in the works for partner brands. Ford’s closure had been preempted by the axing of Ford Performance Vehicles (FPV), though that team has gone on to form Premcar, now aligned with Nissan.
For Holden, the closing of its local chapter was expected to take with it the Walkinshaw Group-owned Holden Special Vehicles (HSV) division, which had long made its money from turning the Commodore and Ute into high-performance models capable of taking on Mercedes-Benz’s AMGs and BMW’s M cars.
Speaking on the Lucky Dogs podcast – hosted by Supercars champions Brodie Kostecki and Will Brown – Walkinshaw Group CEO Ryan Walkinshaw detailed how little notice Holden gave its long-time partner before announcing it would close its final Australian factory.
“There was absolutely no plan to pivot, because we didn’t know,” Walkinshaw recounted.
“We only got told that Holden was closing their plant in Adelaide 15 minutes before the announcement went out.
“It was a phone call from the CEO of Holden [Mike Bernhard] at the time, he gave me a ring and said, ‘Hey, in 15 minutes we’re going to make this announcement. You guys need to be prepared for it. You guys need to tell your staff this is going to come out. We want to give you a heads up.’
“He said, ‘you need to start planning how to close down your side of the business.’ I essentially said no way we’re doing that.
“I got my guys around and then we had to sort of start managing that closing down process and what we were going to do in the last um period of time, which about a year, and how we could try and monetise that last run out of HSVs to be able to build up a nest of cash that we could then use to be able to pivot the business.
“We just started doing the conversions with the Ateco [Ram, Maserati and Renault’s Australian importer] on the Dodge Ram products but we were doing small volumes, you know a few hundred a year. It was still very, very young.
“All my advice from pretty much everyone on my board, other than my chairman, Jeff Brown, who supported me, but all the other boards directors at the time, plus my finance director, my CEO, everyone was saying ‘mate if we close down the business you guys will leave with x amount of money, that’s nice, just go and do what you want to do’.
“But I was far too young to retire and was pretty confident in my people that I felt that we could do something bigger and better, and so I had this theory that with those guys all closing down – Ford are going to close down, Toyota is going to close down – there’s going to be a pretty big number of very talented, experienced engineers and manufacturing staff who, if they want to stay in automotive, I’m probably going to be the last guy left if I get this right.
“What [was] looking like a really good prospect with the Dodge Ram conversions, if I can do that for other American brands, potentially there’s a good business there. Plus being able to do what we do with HSV but with other brands, doing upfitter work.
“I backed myself, backed my team, pivoted the business. In hindsight, I think my youth and arrogance was probably the advantage that allowed me to do that. As you get older, you get a little bit more conservative in your mindset, but it was a big, big punt.
“It was a huge punt and there was a low chance that that was going to be a success. And I won’t lie, we nearly went bust a few times during that period. It was really, really, really tight.
“Somehow managed to get through it and those efforts were rewarded because then you know our business really skyrocketed from there and you know we’ve grown financially seven or eight [times] on what we were previously.
“So that was really the springboard in creating the business that we are today. If it hadn’t happened, you know, we’d probably be sitting here and I’d still be doing some version of HSV for General Motors alone, and the business wouldn’t be what it is.”
While Walkinshaw kept the HSV brand alive until 2020 – having first produced the Colorado ute-based SportsCat, and also converting the Chevrolet Camaro and Silverado 2500HD from left- to right-hand drive – it was eventually wound down following General Motors’ axing of Holden at the end of 2020.
Since then, Walkinshaw has gone on to work with a handful of brands, both in the conversion and modification space.
Ram has been its longest post-Holden partner, though Walkinshaw’s own conversions of Chevrolet’s Silverado 1500 and Heavy Duty led the bowtie brand to be Australia’s best-selling pickup-maker in 2025 and 2024.
Likewise, it also converts the GMC Yukon from left- to right-hand-drive for General Motors Specialty Vehicles, while Walkinshaw is Toyota’s chosen partner to handle the same process for the Tundra.
After finding success with the Volkswagen Amarok W-Series for the first-generation ute, a second-gen version is in the final stages of development and will launch in the near future.
Last year Walkinshaw also opened a new manufacturing facility in Dandenong South, moving from its long-time home of Clayton.
The new 100,000 square metre site employs more than 800 people, and is able to produce 10,000 vehicles annually on four production lines.
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