Holden design to stay in Port Melbourne

Port Melbourne will continue to be the home of General Motors design in Australia, despite the opportunity to move to a more fashionable location as Holden goes through the most dramatic changes in its history.

At a function last week to reveal the latest vehicles his crew has been working on – sorry no details until next month – the message from GM Holden Design Director Richard Ferlazzo was the studio would stay close to where it has been located, even though that precinct is now for sale.

While car companies have studios in fashion and trend hot spots like London, New York and Tokyo, Ferlazzo made it clear Melbourne provided plenty of stimulation.

“We have no intention of moving away from here,” he said. “This is a fabulous city and we travel anyway. Melbourne is a serious city.

“Sure we would love to have an advanced studio on the Gold Coast or something like that as well, but we have 150 specialists right here right now.”

GM Australia Design – as the studio is now known – was established more than 50 years ago as part of the Holden research and development empire, which at its peak encompassed the capability to take a vehicle from conceptual sketch to production.

But by the end of 2017 Holden will have become a full-line importer, with its Elizabeth (SA) assembly line and Port Melbourne engine plant shuttered and its engineering capacity limited to local adaptation work.

But through all this the studio has been given the green light to power on. It has gained significant respect in the GM world for its work on both concepts and production vehicles and is one of only two GM studios globally (Warren in Detroit being the other) to have the capacity to take a concept from proposal to 3D functional reality, as evidenced by the Opel GT to be shown at the Geneva motor show on March 1.

Years of high quality work has come out of Salmon Street and Ferlazzo says the desire is for that to continue.

“There is a plan and yes, the whole site is for sale with a developer. It’s no secret we want to ideally be on the same site.”

“Apart from Holden’s earliest origins in Adelaide, Port Melbourne has been the spiritual home of Holden.”

Holden design’s desire to stay in Port Melbourne is reflected by the rest of the Holden organisation. That is in contrast to Ford, which shifted its marketing and sales business into Richmond last year and left engineering and design at Campbellfield. It closes down its manufacturing plants in October.

Holden is tenanted in the current Salmon Street precinct until 2020, but a redevelopment of the site would be welcome and potentially provide the opportunity for the design facilities to be upgraded.

Ferlazzo expressed confidence that once it became the only stand-alone major design facility in the GM world not aligned with a local manufacturing and development ability, his studio would still be successful.

“There are studios around the world that are non-GM studios that are just studios in a location.

“It works as long as you have enough support.

“Nowadays that just means picking up a phone or having a video conference.”