Growing pains for Walkinshaw

A space race is underway at Walkinshaw Automotive Group as accelerating sales of cars, trucks and caravans soak up the available space at its South Clayton headquarters.

The search for expansion room is coming less than a year after the Walkinshaw operation was transplanted from its former long-term base on part of the Clayton site that was once home to Nissan Australia and its Pulsar-making factory.

There are no plans to vacate the company’s latest 28,000 square-metre premises, which has been leased in a 15-year-deal, but company chief Ryan Walkinshaw says there is already urgent need for more room.

“We’re getting much bigger. We’re actually looking at new, additional sites to fill our requirements for manufacturing, going forward,” Walkinshaw told motoring.com.au.

“We have big ambitions. This isn’t the end of our expansion plans. We’ve got a lot more that we’d like to do in the future, going forward.

“When we were first walking around our new site at South Clayton I was saying ‘Gee, I hope we can fill this’. And currently the discussions are how on earth this is going to be able to hold all the new products and be able to support our growth.

“It’s a good problem to have. It’s pretty exciting.”

Walkinshaw said the end of Holden Commodore manufacturing in Australia changed the business model for his company, expanding it up and away from its reliance on Holden Special Vehicles (HSV).

“We’d become comfortable doing what we would do. It was the best thing that ever happened to us. The disruption in our business, the changes, forced us to rethink what we do.

“It forced us to go and change. Some change can be a very powerful tool, and for us -- so far -- we’re very proud and very excited with what we’ve achieved. We’ve still got a lot of work to do, though.”

Walkinshaw Automotive is now running four production lines at South Clayton for right-hand drive ‘remanufacturing’ of its Chevrolet Camaro coupe and Silverado pick-up, and -- on a contract basis for Ateco Automotive’s American Special Vehicles -- RAM pick-ups.

The Walkinshaw Park facility also produces the Holden Colorado SportsCat by HSV -- the only new model that currently wears an HSV badge -- and is home to sister companies Walkinshaw Performance and Fusion Automotive, the Australian distributor for Tata Motors.

Walkinshaw also owns New Age Caravans based in the north of Melbourne, for which it has designed and engineered an upcoming camper trailer.

“Obviously, the business model has changed dramatically with moving away from Commodore to new products, but in the same way and at the same time as other automotive brands have had to adapt to the end of manufacturing, we’ve had to do the same,” said Walkinshaw.

“It’s a broader relationship and the relationship extends much deeper into the US than it did previously. Particularly with the Chevy products, with the Silverado and the Camaro, and future product that may come out of the US and those brands. So the relationship has got a much wider berth than it used to.”

The RHD conversion business is something the company is continuing to explore and Walkinshaw can see extra opportunities in Australia.

Although he refuses to go into much detail, Walkinshaw is well backgrounded on the cost of adding right-hand drive to existing left-hand drive factories and the lower costs of a conversion operation like his.

Future RHD conversion projects are expected to include the new-generation MY19 Silverado and its SUV cousin, the Suburban.

“That is a business that we’re looking at. We’re also looking at things that are more like what we’ve traditionally done. We’re open-minded about what other opportunities might be ahead of us where we can apply our world-class design, engineering and manufacturing skills.

“I’m not going to give you any specifics. I’m not going to go into specifics.”

Walkinshaw says the growth in the company will build both its turnover and profitability, with a far greater return than during the HSV years.

“This year, naturally, it’s a transition. The following years should be a big improvement on what we’ve had.”

He says the workforce at South Clayton is growing rapidly and he can see extra hiring in the future.

“Eight years ago we had 170 staff. Towards end of last year we were around 250 and I believe now at 500. So we’ve more than doubled in the last 12 months.”

With the change now well underway, Walkinshaw is optimistic about the future but still honours the company’s roots in the Holden Commodore, even if its involvement is now limited to the sale of WP components for superseded homegrown versions of them.

“We still see ourselves as HSV and we are still HSV in Australia, with the specific models that we feel suit the HSV brand going forward.

“But we’ve always had ambitions to grow outside being just Commodore. And it makes sense in our relationship with GM that we grow our ambitions. As well as working with other manufacturers, as we do for example with Ateco and the RAM product.

“I’d say it’s an evolution rather than just a change. At the end of the day, if we feel there is a product out there that we can make exciting and drive passion for our customers, that’s something that’s attractive to us.”