Holden Commodore hero departs

The Holden engineer famous for setting a lap record on the Nurburgring Nordschliefe in a Commodore V8 ute has left the company.

Rob Trubiani had his last day at Holden last Friday, walking out the door in the first of multiple waves of redundancies that are scheduled to continue until August.

Holden is in the process of closing down in the wake of its axing by parent General Motors in February.

“I’m disappointed, I’m still processing it all,” admitted Trubiani, who joined Holden from university in 1996.

Trubiani is best known for setting a new commercial vehicle lap record of 8:19.47sec around the 20.8km ‘Green Hell’ in a VF Commodore SS-V Redline ute in 2013.

You can watch the video here. If you’ve seen it before, watch it again. It’s worth it!

“It was pretty awesome to go there in a Holden,” said Trubiani. “The car handled the circuit really, really well. There were no big surprises that scared us.

“It was an easy lap to drive from that point of view. The car did everything it was meant to and I just had to make sure I did all the things I was meant to.”

The 44-year old also featured in Holden’s 2018 ‘Test Drive Challenge’ television advertising campaign alongside several colleagues.

By then he had already become one of the most high-profile members of the Holden engineering team because of his focus on vehicle dynamics.

He often presented to the automotive media at new car launches and was more than happy to demonstrate their handling traits at Holden’s Lang Lang proving ground at speed.

“Showing people the capabilities of the cars is always enjoyable,” said Trubiani. “I think all Holdens had to handle well and it was nice to demonstrate how competent they were.

“I remember at the VE launch I had a couple of race drivers in with me when we were at Lang Lang and one of them turned to me and said ‘you are ------ nuts!’.

“That was nice.”

Trubiani always worked in the chassis and vehicle dynamics area. He was a member of the engineering team that developed the Zeta architecture for the VE-VF Commodore launched in 2006 and intended to go on and underpin a whole generation of affordable rear-wheel drive GM models.

“It was awesome to work on a program that started from a clean sheet,” he said. “We developed all-new bushes, all-new steering system, all-new suspension, all-new dampers. The whole car was new.

“It was all done by the team at Port Melbourne, so it was huge to be part of that team.”

But the Global Financial Crisis and GM’s bankruptcy fatally wounded that plan. The Commodore ceased production when Holden’s Elizabeth plant closed in 2017.

Trubiani and his colleagues developed imported vehicles as diverse as the Spark mini, Astra sedan, Colorado ute and the imported Opel-sourced ZB Commodore for Australia and New Zealand.

“The ZB was a great car and I knew the weight that that car had. Wearing the Commodore badge it had to be good, because the previous generation of car was good,” he said.

“What we found was getting people into ZBs, they loved them. It was getting them into the car that was the bigger issue.

“They drove really well. Making sure the ZB drove well was an enjoyable challenge.”

By the time he left Holden, Trubiani had risen to the position of lead vehicle dynamics engineer, making him responsible for tuning the ride, handling and feel of new models imported from the GM portfolio before they became Holdens.

Some settings devised for Holden-badged models in Australia even flowed back off-shore for other markets.

“That did happen a few times and that’s a nice, rewarding feeling,” he said.

Trubiani says he is keen to take a break and then continue working within the automotive industry.

“Staying in the industry would be great,” he said.