HSV working on Cruze missile

A Corolla-sized car with the Holden Special Vehicles treatment? You might just get to see that, following HSV's confirmation it is full speed ahead on a high performance version of the Holden Cruze small car. But the hotter hatched Holden will come at a price -- the company has dumped the Astra-based VXR and ditched any plans it had to import Opel models from Germany, such as the Corsa and Insignia VXR models.

"We are looking seriously at Cruze," HSV boss Phil Harding said at the launch of the E2 range last night.

"We are working on Cruze at the moment. We are working on a business case."

He said a HSV version of the Cruze would only be built if it drove like a HSV.

"To get a HSV badge on a car it's got to tick [several] boxes. It's got to have grunt, it's got to reach a satisfactory 0 to 100km/h time, it's got to have driving performance in terms of ride and handling, it's got to feel like a sporty car and it's got to have the look. If there's a tick in all of those criteria ... then it becomes a HSV."

Harding would not speculate on how soon such a vehicle could arrive in showrooms or what engine it would have, although there is a turbocharged 1.4-litre four-cylinder engine available for the Cruze in Europe.

"Don't ask me when it will arrive, or what engine it will have," he said. "But I have got a feel for what it will look like, because our styling department is working on it."

When asked if HSV would do a hot version of the existing sedan or upcoming hatch, or both, he said: "We still need to know the difference in the torsional rigidity of the body shells because if you're going to stiffen the chassis, then you need to know it works.

"This is early days for us and we're still getting a basic understanding of the car in order to decide that... I don't know ... whether we'd choose the hatch or the sedan, even if those hurdles were overcome and we had a free choice."

Harding poured cold water on suggestions HSV would build a hybrid version of the car (the Cruze shares some of its underpinnings with the Chevrolet Volt petrol-electric car).

"We're not building a hybrid", he said with a smile.

Meanwhile, HSV said it had canned plans to import more hot hatches from its General Motors affiliate in Germany, Opel.

"We've had discussions with Opel on pricing and we can't get the numbers to add up," he said.

"We can't get the cars to the price points where we think they will sell in significant numbers. These are great cars but in pure business they're off the table now."

As Holden does not import the regular versions of the cars, HSV would be required to stock an entire parts catalogue for each -- not just the ones added to the vehicle by Opel's performance arm Opel Performance Centre (OPC).

"We were seriously looking at importing the models on our own, even without Holden importing them. But then we would have to support the spare parts for the whole car, not just for the HSV or OPC items," Harding told the Carsales Network.

Once the last few remaining Astra VXRs are sold there will be no more. At $43,000 the Astra VXR was deemed too dear. HSV wouldn't reveal how much the Corsa and Insignia VXRs would cost but one insider speculated $35,000 and $65,000 respectively, making both prohibitively expensive.

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