No plans for civvy Statesman: Holden

Holden isn't building a Chev-badged Statesman or Caprice for export to the US. That's the word from Emily Perry, Holden's Director External Communications.

Responding to the question posed by the Carsales Network this morning, Perry was unequivocal: "We have no plans to export that vehicle as a civilian car at this stage."

At least two web publishers have reported in recent days that Chevrolet is considering a civilian version of the Caprice PPV (the Holden-built police interceptor for the American market). The speculation appears to have been stirred up following Chevrolet's release of specifications for the Caprice PPV, which is based on the local Statesman/Caprice WM platform.

Overnight, online forum GM Inside News floated the possibility that the Statesman could be sold in the US as a premium-level Chevrolet to compete directly with Hyundai's Equus, but Perry refuted that.

Further speculation also persists that the short-wheelbase Commodore will make a return to the US market -- something Perry didn't definitively deny. Nor is she in a position to do so. The question of the Commodore returning to the American market has been a tennis match played out by GM executives in North America, frequently confusing the issue for enthusiasts.

Former Holden MD Mark Reuss had said prior to vacating the top job at Fishermans Bend that the company was looking at ways of compensating for the loss of export earnings from the defunct Pontiac G8 program -- which folded when the Pontiac brand was closed down by GM in the midst of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy crisis.

While Reuss didn't say that getting the Commodore back into the US was the ultimate aim, it would seem to be the most likely prospect. A report published by the Carsales Network earlier today that John Crennan has been recruited for a special project working with GM in the US just stirs up more water-cooler chat.

Crennan, given his long-standing involvement with HSV, would be ideally placed to assist in the development of a semi-prestige performance brand along the same lines for Chevrolet -- and the short-wheelbase Commodore would make the perfect nucleus for such a brand, although if that were to take place, where would Corvette fit? And what about the locally-designed Camaro, for that matter?

If Holden and Chevrolet do make a move to reintroduce the Commodore to the US market, it may need to happen soon. According to Perry, the Series II VE update is due "within the coming weeks and months, basically," and she further confirmed that Series II is a mid-life update.

But asked when the all-new replacement for the VE platform was scheduled for introduction, Perry wouldn't be drawn.

"You could speculate as much as you like, but we're not talking about next generation cars yet."

Since the VE Commodore was introduced in 2006 -- and the VE Series II is due shortly -- there's a strong likelihood that a new generation Commodore will be pencilled in for around 2014.

If, as some pundits in the US are suggesting, the Commodore is introduced there as a 2013 model (which would mean an on-sale date sometime in 2012), that timeframe doesn't make a lot of sense for a car that may be due for replacement within a couple of years. On that point, Perry steered clear of fanning the flames of speculation any higher.

"We're not even talking domestically about what we're doing in terms of next-generation vehicles; we're solely focused on launching Series II -- so we certainly wouldn't have any comments about export potential for those future vehicles when we haven't even launched the car yet."

The vehicles that have been exported by Holden in the past have always followed the domestic release of the locally-built car, they have never preceded the domestic introduction, so a hypothetical release date in 2012/2013 seems very unlikely for the VE replacement, assuming that falls due around 2014.

It's also unlikely for the last of the VE Series II cars, since it would only give GM in the US a window of perhaps eighteen months to sell the cars -- that's hardly worth the cost of 'federalising' for what may very well be a low-volume production run anyway. Perry confirmed that the domestic car always receives precedence ahead of export production.

"We're very clear in saying that, for Holden, our number one priority is having a strong domestic business. Any export volume will most likely be niche export opportunity and will be the icing on the cake for us -- but our core business will be built on the strength of our domestic sales and the imports for the Australian market..."

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