HSV reveals plan to recoup Camaro investment

HSV is pushing to slash the time it takes to convert a Chevrolet Camaro from left to right-hand drive as part of a drive to recover millions of dollars spent certifying the 2019 2SS and ZL1 models for local sale.

That cost included writing off three ZL1s to gain Australian Design Rule crash certification.

“It was super painful,” said HSV managing director Tim Jackson.

The supercharged 477kW ZL1 is brand new to Australia in 2019 and Jackson confirmed its certification alone had cost “in the low single millions”.

The total cost of development and remanufacturing – as HSV prefers to call it – of RHD Camaro was already more than $10 million when the MY18 2SS first went on-sale here last September.

You can read our first drive of the new ZL1 here.

And you can read our outline of the Camaro remanufacturing process here.

A Camaro currently takes 100-110 hours to remanufacture and Jackson said the aim was to chop that to 80 hours.

“That’s going to take some line changes and a few other things,” he confirmed.

“One thing we have had with Camaro is a lot of change; model year ’18, model year ’19, ZL1, manual has come in. We have thrown a lot at that line, so its ability to operate efficiently as possible has been impacted by a lot of change, basically from last October through to now.

“We think as we move through the back half of the year we’ll be able to get that down.”

Costs for MY19 were exacerbated by Chevrolet ending production of European ECE-approved Camaros. That meant HSV had to take a US-spec vehicle which added extra certification costs, including emissions.

“There’s more cost in this model year ’19 than there was in model year ’18,” Jackson said.

HSV also had to modify the exhaust to comply with ADR pass-by noise limits. A bunch of unique items had to be sourced or developed in-house to achieve ADR compliance, including tail-lamps, headlights, seatbelts and exterior mirrors.

HSV had to develop a blanking plate to cover over two driving lights for the front fascia because ADRs only allow two DRLs, it had to add rear wheel coverage spats and make modifications to ESC tune.

It also had to develop a new clutch arm because the standard pedal clashed with a firewall structural member. A new front swaybar was needed because the original fouled the rack motor when it was swapped.

A new casing was developed for the head-up display newly made standard for 2019. It had been package protected for the MY18, but HSV ran out of time to get it finished.

HSV made no performance tuning changes to the MY19 Camaro, but it is considering suspension upgrades in the future.

Jackson confirmed HSV has begun studying certification requirements for the recently announced MY20 Camaro.

Read the HSV Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 Review