HSV Commodore production ends this weekend
Piping-hot GTSR W1 will be last off the Clayton line as V8 Commodore era endsA red GTSR W1 will be the last car to roll off Holden Special Vehicles’ Clayton assembly line this weekend.
The final, ‘Light My Fire’ coloured W1 -- build #275 of the 275 built for the Australian market -- caps nearly 30 years of production of modified Commodore V8s and a smattering of other vehicles by HSV.
Powered by an epic 474kW/815Nm supercharged 6.2-litre V8, the landmark W1 is the final MY17 HSV in production and will be retained by the company.
With Ford, Toyota and Holden’s assembly lines already closed, last weekend’s shutdown at Clayton brings to an end the last vestige of Australian vehicle manufacturing.
But if you want to see how HSV went about the job of turning Commodores into ClubSports and W1s, check out our video here and feature story here.
Ending with W1 was appropriate, as the Australia’s Best Driver’s Car winner was the last and greatest Commodore model developed by HSV and the last derivative of the Holden Zeta platform that underpinned Commodore from 2005 to October’s end of production at Elizabeth.
In total, HSV has built 90,114 vehicles since its establishment by the Walkinshaw family to replace Peter Brock’s Holden Dealer Team as Holden’s official performance partner in 1987.
Production of the first model, the VL Group A SS, didn’t start until early 1988 at HSV’s original Notting Hill base.
HSV moved to the former Nissan plant at Clayton in 1994 and will now relocate to a new state-of-the-art facility a few kilometres from its current site where it will build the Colorado SportsCat and convert the Chevrolet Camaro coupe and Silverado pick-up to right-hand drive.
The site also houses the Walkinshaw co-venture with Neville Crichton’s Ateco Automotive that converts Dodge RAMs to right-hand drive under the ASV banner.
The current site will continue to house the former Holden factory Supercars racing team, which from January 1 will become Walkinshaw Andretti United, reflecting a buy-in by US racing legend Michael Andretti and British motorsport company, United Autosports.
Key HSV production volumes by model:
VL Group A SS -- 750
VL SV88 -- 150
VN SV3800 -- 491
VN SV89 -- 200
VN SV5000 -- 359
VN ClubSport -- 410
VG Maloo -- 132
VP GTS -- 130
VS GTS-R -- 85
GTS Coupe -- 423
Coupe 4 -- 132
W427 -- 137
25th Anniversary GTS -- 140
GTS Maloo -- 255
GTSR sedan -- 1270
GTSR Maloo -- 606
GTSR W1 -- 298
Key HSV production milestones:
5000th vehicle built -- June 1991
20,000th vehicle built -- April 1997
50,000th vehicle built -- July 2006
75,000th vehicle built -- February 2013
90,000th vehicle built -- December 2017
Ten most significant HSVs
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