Lutz: Four door Vette could come out soon

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 4:11 pm

Holden looks set to secure a billion dollar export program and get the Chevrolet Camaro muscle car in return.
Charismatic General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz has today confirmed Chevrolet's interest in the Holden Commodore as a "four-door Corvette" sports model in the USA and also revealed the new Camaro muscle car is likely to be sold in Australia.

Lutz's confirmation of Chevrolet's interest in the Commodore backed up GM North America boss Mark Reuss' comments made exclusively to Drive at the Detroit motor show.

However, his announcement that the Chevrolet Camaro - which is based on a shortened version of the Commodore's Zeta architecture - was a surprise.

Later Holden boss Alan Batey confirmed his interest in the Camaro, but said it could not arrive before 2011 and would be priced somewhere beyond $75,000.

He also said it would most likely retain its Chev badging and be sold through selected Holden dealers.

The 6.2-litre V8 would definitely be coming if the deal was done, the V6 less likely given the poor sales of the old Monaro V6 (just 94 were sold throughout the Monaro's life).

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 4:12 pm

"I think you can pretty much count on a right-hand drive Camaro," Lutz said. "The Camaro at some point will be factory right-hand drive, that is what we are currently looking at with a great deal of focus; be built in the plant in Canada and shipped from here in right-hand drive for right-hand drive markets. Why not?

"Most of the parts are there, all we have to do is reverse the instrument panel. All the right-hand drive bits are a given because of the fact it is a Holden architecture."

The original plan was for Camaro to be built in right as well as left-hand drive but that was killed off by the financial crisis that eventually led to GM's bankruptcy. Now out of chapter 11, government owned and rid of its legacy debt, Lutz says the time is right for GM to ramp up its export program out of its North American plants.

Batey said: "It's all about timing right now, because if you talk to North America they will tell you there is a supply and demand issue. They have too much demand and they can't supply. Would we in Australia like to see the car happen? Yeah it would be great. I think it would add some excitement to our portfolio.

"It's not a business case from our perspective. It's up to them (GM North America) to fund and from our perspective it's how many cars would we want."

The answer to that is not all that many: "It's real niche, I don't think we would do Monaro volumes. A lot would depend on the exchange rate and fuel prices. In an ideal world without the financial crisis the car would have done well."

Marty Howard · **Posted:** Thu Jan 14, 2010 4:13 pm

One complication for Australian supply is the Camaro's great popularity in North America. Taking cars away from local customers for conversion and shipment to small right-hand drive markets such as Australia and the UK doesn't make a great deal of financial sense.

And if local demand for Camaro doesn't diminish until late in its lifecycle it may not be attractive for Holden over a short sales period.

Meanwhile, Lutz said Chevrolet would consider a high-end Commodore-based model for the sports sedan market after current work on developing a Holden Caprice-based police car was completed.

"If we can pull that off and we have the next generation Commodore in as a police vehicle then we want to take a look at reintroducing a civil version as a high-end Chevrolet. Because when you get down to it the thrill of high performance driving is unmatched by anything that doesn't have rear-wheel drive, bags of torque and a nice transmission. So there's a possibility of a premium Chevrolet sedan that would be sold in limited numbers. Think of it as a kind of four-door Corvette,

"We says limited numbers because with US fuel economy legislation we can't afford to sell too many of them."

Batey explained that there were actually two potential models being investigated for the Chevrolet role. The first would be based on the current Commodore and exploit the US homologation conducted for the defunct Pontiac G8. It would have a moderate amount of restyling to look more like a Chev.

However, further out, there is prospect of developing a car specifically for Chevrolet utilising Holden Zeta underpinnings but mated to bespoke Chev bodywork.

"There's a lot of discussion going on at the moment," said Batey. "What we need to do over the next 90 days is bring some of the ideas into a much closer idea so we can start creating some business cases.

Graham Jagger · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 12:53 am **Posts:** 1718

Dear GM,

Please take the words "Corvette" and "4 door" and never put them in the same sentence ever again. Also please refrain from calling anything else you make a Corvette. Even the Cadillac XLR.

Oh and btw, you already make a car that fits this bill. It's called a CTS-V. You know, the one you poured gobs of money into marketing. Buying a racing series to advertise it in. Now you need to actually sell some before you go off half-cocked again...

The CTS-V is a serious sedan. Make the STS-V if you want a bit more size.

Warmest Regards,
An old Chevy die-hard.

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Lutz: Four door Vette could come out soon

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