US pickup giant Ram will soon depart its current left- to right-hand drive remanufacturing facility in Melbourne’s Clayton suburb, and relocate to Walkinshaw’s massive new Dandenong South facility.
As reported earlier this week, work has officially been completed on the new facility, spanning 100,000 square metres and capable of manufacturing in excess of 20,000 vehicles per year.
While Walkinshaw – best known for its long tenure as Holden Special Vehicles – will move its own in-house conversions of the Toyota Tundra, Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Yukon to the facility, Ram has now confirmed it too will relocate in November.
After initially setting up shop at Walkinshaw’s smaller Clayton facility in December 2015, Ram Trucks Australia later moved to the former HSV shed – also in Clayton – in October 2017, the same month Holden ended local operations.
Since moving to the latter facility, Ram has converted 34,721 pickups (1500, 2500 and 3500) to right-hand drive, with its circa-250 strong workforce set to be retained by the move to Dandenong South.
“After eight years at our current remanufacturing facility in Clayton, Ram Trucks Australia is moving to a new state-of-the-art facility,” said Ram general manager, Jeff Barber.
“As the biggest seller of US pick-ups in Australia – with more than 35,000 vehicles remanufactured over the past 10 years – we believe this move will improve efficiencies and help secure the jobs of 200 factory workers and approximately 50 engineering staff who remanufacture Ram Trucks Australia vehicles to factory quality and safety standards.
“As you can appreciate, as the first US pick-up brand to remanufacture vehicles here in the modern era, we are proud of the part we have played in keeping local vehicle manufacturing and engineering skills alive in Australia in the wake of the closure of the Holden, Ford and Toyota factories in 2016 and 2017.
“By our estimates, the US pick-up sector as a whole now employs approximately 3000 workers if you include all production and engineering staff, plus those in the supplier base.”
On top of the right-hand drive conversions and related engineering efforts for the American pickups, Walkinshaw is also expected to launch a new generation Volkswagen Amarok W-Series in the near future, with related modifications to take place at the new facility.
The brand’s Supercars Championship team, Walkinshaw Andretti United, will also relocate, adding to an already busy year amid WAU’s move from Ford Mustangs to the Toyota GR Supra for 2026, as it also heads the homologation process.
Discussion about this post