HSV to top 90,000 cars

HSV's 30th anniversary later this year will effectively mark two milestones – the end of locally-produced performance Holdens and, potentially, the delivery of the 90,000th car wearing the helmet and lion badge.

"We're in our 30th year but we officially hit that birthday on October 15," HSV CEO Tim Jackson told motoring.com.au last week at an exclusive interview and W1 preview.

"We'll be building [cars] all the way through the year and I know right near the end, we'll hit 90,000," Jackson revealed.

The final run of cars will celebrate the 30th anniversary and the GTSR W1 will be without doubt, the fastest production Holden/HSV yet. Little wonder then the HSV boss says interest in the final models has been strong.

"There's a lot of pent-up interest in what we're going to do. There's obviously been a lot of speculation, so that's kind of driven a lot of interest as well," he explained.

"There's a lot of people waiting to see what's coming and what it's going to be and a lot of people want to play a part in that last set of cars. And that's, that's why we've been clear [with details on the final cars]. That's it. Nothing [more]... We're not holding anything back."

Jackson says his organisation has sought to be transparent on the run-out of the locally produced cars. There's no final secret special in the works, he says.

"We want buyers to be able to buy with confidence and know what's coming...

"We can sit around and debate the issues related to the changes next year, but at the end of the day, if we can make it [the last locally built models] a great celebration of everyone who's worked at HSV but also Holden [we'll be very pleased].

"What we launch this year doesn't happen without the support of Holden full stop. So it's a reflection of two companies that are passionate about making great cars with a performance focus," he said.

Jackson says the final HSVs will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis, but he is keen to make sure HSV stalwarts have some form of second chance.

"We know one of the issues will be [the chance] guys who've consistently supported us may miss out on the car they want. So we're just going through the final phase of at least [creating], let's say, a second chance. So we're looking at maybe holding a few cars back and anyone who's been a frequent buyer will have a chance to put their name in the ring," Jackson explained.

"We know there's going to be some people [who] will be disappointed. I'm not sure if we'll have it done [organised] by February 1 [HSV's new model news embargo date], but we'll have a pretty clear idea of how we want to do it [by then]," the HSV CEO revealed.

Jackson says one of the challenges moving forward for HSV is satisfying its buyers' requirements for differentiation from 'cooking model' Holden equivalents. The separation of Holden and HSV products is one of the key definitions of the brand 30 years on, he suggests.

"If you have a bookmark to the first car to the last car, I think the level of differentiation has changed significantly.

"The marketplace is more competitive. We need to keep adding more value onto the car to make our customer want to come back and buy, and see value in the product we're delivering," he explained.

Holden's own focus on ever higher performance models has been good for HSV's evolution, Jackson says.

"Sometimes we get into conversations and people think that's a bad thing... Holden shouldn't just leave us space to hopefully fill.

"They need to keep pushing us to greater levels as well. That's probably the biggest change [in HSV's 30 year evolution]," he proffered.

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