HSV SportsCat to die soon

The HSV SportsCat high-performance dual-cab 4x4 ute will soon be dead and there seems little chance a replacement will be procured under the banner of the new General Motors Specialty Vehicles (GMSV) operation currently being negotiated between the Walkinshaw Group and General Motors.

GM killed Holden in February and revealed the plan for GMSV to become its sole Aussie outpost, without naming the Walkinshaw Group – which owns HSV – as its potential operator.

But Walkinshaw Group CEO Tim Jackson confirmed yesterday talks were underway.

HSV currently converts the Chevrolet Camaro V8 coupe and full-size Silverado pick-up to right-hand drive, but has also developed the SportsCat based on the right-hand drive Holden Colorado produced in GM’s factory in Thailand.

But with right-hand drive Colorado supply drying up following the sale of the plant to China’s Great Wall Motors – announced at the same time as the Holden, axing – SportsCat supplies will also soon run out.

Jackson confirmed as much yesterday.

“We are still in conversations as to when the Colorado line will roll-out, but for the moment we are still building,” he said. “But it [SportsCat] will eventually roll away in its current form because it won’t have a core vehicle to build on.”

There will still be production of left-hand drive Colorado vehicles that Walkinshaw could latch onto for local conversion – or remanufacture, as it prefers to call it – but the cost of such a vehicle by the time it was brought to market would likely render it uncompetitive.

The HSV SportsCat currently retails for between $62,490 and $66,790, making it competitive against the likes of the Ford Ranger Raptor and Nissan Navara N-Trek Warrior.

But local remanufacture could add tens of thousands of dollars to the price.

“Any project that we look at, the economics need to make sense,” cautioned Jackson. “It has to be a good business case.

“Following on from the GM announcement there will be no right-hand drive product for us to pick up, so it’s going to have to involve a left to right conversion.

“The economics change when you do that.”

Speaking generally, without talking specifically about Colorado, Jackson added: “The nature of the business model is one where low-volume niche is going to be slightly more expensive from a production perspective.

“In that specialty vehicle space people need to be prepared to pay a premium for it and it needs to offer something really unique and aspirational.”

Jackson said the sales performance of SportsCat had actually risen in the wake of the Holden announcement.

carsales.com.au understands some pricing discounts have been advised to HSV’s 65 dealers, but they are not as dramatic as the price cuts expected to be applied to discontinued Holden models.

HSV SportsCat stocks are expected to expire in the next few months, although Jackson wouldn’t commit to any form of timeline.

“There are different options … We’ll understand that a bit more in the next three or four weeks,” he said.