Hotter Holden Cruze hatch mooted

Australia's first home-grown hot hatch in 25 years has been put on ice for the time being, Holden's national sales director (and former executive director of planning) Peter Keley has revealed to motoring.com.au.

"We were looking at the hot hatch type car [for the Cruze range]," said Mr Keley during the national media launch of 2014 Holden Cruze this week.

Australia's last locally manufactured hot hatch was the HSV SV1800 Astra, circa 1988, which was essentially a rebadged Australian-built Nissan Pulsar with beefed-up performance.

Mr Keley explained that a high-performance 2.0-litre turbo version of the Cruze range was considered, but the priority for Holden was to balance its budget.

Holden instead invested money and time improving the entire Cruze range, with changes to gearboxes, suspension and infotainment systems being the major upgrades for the 2014 Cruze line-up that goes on sale from April 1.

"Would we love to do a 2.0-litre hot hatch? Absolutely. It's in our blood to want to do that sort of thing, but at the end of the day we still need to look at delivering the best market outcome and the best returns to GM.

"Your engineering and budgetary finances are not unlimited so we have to look at what the market needs and what market opportunities there are and spend the money most wisely."

Sources revealed to motoring.com.au that the high-output 206kW/400Nm direct-injection 2.0-litre turbo engine from the Opel Astra OPC was the engine of choice for a tyre-frying Cruze, but it would have been detuned to around 160-170kW for the Cruze application.

But the idea of an Australian developed and built hot hatch is not out of the question altogether. Mr Keley hinted that a hardcore Cruze could be developed in future, possibly as part of the next-generation small car range due in 2016.

"Nothing's ever off the table. We're always trying to meet the needs of the market. If there's enough demand there and we can make the business case, we'd always look at something."

Mr Keley said a high-performance version of the Holden Cruze is "something that's definitely an area of interest for us", adding that such a product would need to be sold in large enough numbers to justify a business case.

"Extra volume is certainly a key element - it's a volume game," he said, confirming that if Holden did engineer a hot Cruze, it would be natural for GM to offer the car in global markets.

"The [Cruze] is a global product, so if GM globally decided it wanted to do a 2.0-litre turbo it could have been LHD or RHD. Not all the engineering is unique to right or left [-hand drive]."

Though not a hot hatch per se, Holden has upgraded the 2014 Cruze range with its most potent Cruze SRi yet, powered by the Opel Astra Sport's 1.6-litre turbo petrol engine that produces 132kW/230Nm, which is 29kW more power than the previous SRi.

Readjusted price points means the beefier SRi is also priced $3500 less than the previous model, from $22,490.

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