MIMS: More on Coupe 60

Holden's 60th anniversary Coupe 60 concept is remarkably production-ready for a showcar. Indeed, with the exception of the side exhausts, there's little if any reason why Holden couldn't build it -- and soon. Indeed, even the aggressive V8 Supercar-style sidepipes could be 'federalized' if the carmaker opted to fit fixed rear glass, rather than capitalise on the pillarless coupe's full glasshouse opening.

The Coupe 60 was built at a cost of $2.5m by a team of Holden employees and a Japanese company that specialises in showcars. The design itself dates back to the start of the VE program in 2002, says Holden design head, Tony Stolfo.

"We really set the story back in 2002, we knew we'd generate a coupe of the [VE] architecture... It is production capable."

"Essentially it sits on the VE platform. It's about 60mm shorter than a Commodore but has the same wheelbase," Stolfo revealed.

"The couple distance between the front and rear occupants is the same as VE; the H-point's dropped a little bit compared to the base VE Commodore -- that allows us to slam the roof. The rear end's obviously a lot shorter -- we've chopped the rear rail to allow us to shorten up the rear end and give us that long dash-to-axle look and short rear overhang performance look.

"She's sweet," he said, adding: "I would love to keep the pillarless look [in any production car] but it would come down to structure and safety."

Holden boss Mark Reuss, singing the car's praises, confirmed GM head office in Detroit had seen the car and was "excited by it".

"Right now it's a concept car, and like with every concept car we want to see what the reaction is. If there's strong reaction we'll look at the business [case] around it, and make judgements around it," the Holden chief said.

"But right now it's a concept car to celebrate the anniversary here -- we're very proud of that. It's got a lot of great stuff in it, including Active Fuel Management technology and it can use E85...

"We've got to save something that's relevant from a product standpoint before we ever start looking at a business for it, to be honest. Something like this is truly a celebration of Holden and its 60th [anniversary]."

Reuss said the wider GM world would see Coupe 60 up close in April. With any business case likely to require a significant export commitment, the private unveiling could be as important as this morning's public airing.

 "We have an internal company conference in Orlando [Florida] in April. [We're going to] try and see if we can get this thing over there... So we can show it off to the rest of the people at GM.

"It would need to have a healthy export line somewhere. Fifty per cent of our business is export so to keep the business viable and sustained here with manufacturing, we want to export," Reuss said.

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