Walkinshaw: more deals coming

Walkinshaw Group is expecting to soon announce more deals like its factory-approved right-hand drive conversion of RAM trucks as it pushes its claim to be Australia’s largest automotive design, engineering and manufacturing entity once Ford, Holden and Toyota depart by the end of 2017.

And company owner Ryan Walkinshaw has also confirmed that plans to expand beyond Australia and the UK are progressing, with new manufacturing facilities in Asia and Europe close to confirmation.

Best known in this country for its association with General Motors Holden via Holden Special Vehicles and the Holden Racing Team, Walkinshaw Group also distributes Tata pick-up trucks, has an aftermarket performance arm and provides confidential engineering and design support to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) from its Clayton base in suburban Melbourne.

With Holden ceasing manufacture of the Commodore by late 2017 and depriving the company of its most consistent source of income, Walkinshaw has been involved in a multi-year search to assemble the global business deals that will ensure the group’s future.

“I am more positive this year about where we are going in the future than I have been for the last few years,” he told motoring.com.au. “(We are) expanding our doors to design and engineering and now manufacturing with numerous other manufacturers.

“We have several of those on the go at the moment and we hope to have a lot more in the future.”

The deal to convert the heavy duty RAM trucks was announced back in April by former Fiat Chrysler Australia boss Clyde Campbell, who has since become embroiled in a high-profile court case with his old employer.

While Campbell is no longer involved, the plan to convert the RAM 2500 and 3500 remains in place, has the support of FCA and is being backed by the veteran automotive entrepreneur Neville Crichton via his business Fiat Chrysler New Zealand.

“One of our key focusses is to look at the conversion market and where there is opportunities for OEMs to convert their products from left to right-hand drive for right-hand drive markets – not just exclusively Australia, but all right-hand drive markets,” Walkinshaw told motoring.com.au.

“We have a couple of projects … on the go and hopefully a few more coming.  By this time next year we should have a couple more."

Motoring.com.au has previously reported the work the Walkinshaw Performance division is doing with Citroen in Australia. Meanwhile, Walkinshaw refused to comment on speculation his company could perform consultancy work for proposed Aussie start-up car-maker Ethan Automotive.

Walkinshaw has been clear that part of his motivation is to emulate the achievements of his late father Tom’s TWR business, which at its height was one of the largest independent automotive engineering, design and manufacturing consultancies.

While Ford claims its ongoing design and engineering operations will make it Australia's largest automotive employer post-2017, by which stage Queensland-based pick-up truck converter Performax International could become Australia's biggest vehicle manufacturer with capacity to produce 500-1000 vehicles annually at its Gympie factory.

However, Walkinshaw says no company has the ability to design, engineer and manufacture vehicles to the same standard as his.

“There is no-one else in this region capable of doing what we do to the level that an OEM would expect to be able to warranty it and so on and have the confidence that their product could go out there as what could be deemed to be a full OEM product.”

He says the perception Walkinshaw Group was owned by Holden or exclusive to Holden (it is neither) had been an impediment to growth which was being overcome.

“We do design, engineering and manufacturing obviously for Holden in Australia, but we have various other design, engineering and soon-to-be manufacturing deals with other people as well.

“We are looking to set up facilities in Asia for manufacturing in the very near future and back in Europe as well.

“We are looking at somewhere like Thailand but that is all we can say at the moment.”

But Walkinshaw also stressed the desire to continue working with Holden and General Motors after local manufacturing ceases.

“We will definitely be working with Holden going into the future. As far as I am concerned and as far as I know we have several potential projects on the go with Holden and as long as Holden are bringing in cars and they have an appetite for making those cars have a halo effect on their brand by allowing us to do performance enhancements we will be there doing that.

“The relationship is as strong as ever from my perspective and there’s some new and exciting things we will hopefully be doing with GM in the future that I can’t go into any detail about which will expand us further away from just being a Commodore performance enhancement business.

There have been suggestion for some time that Walkinshaw could expand its services to GM by establishing a Chevrolet Special Vehicles division that could potentially provide services such as approved conversion of the new Camaro to right-hand drive – something that is currently ruled out at factory-level.

“Everyone knows the rumours about the stuff we are doing,” Walkinshaw said. “I can’t comment on them but hopefully in the relatively near future we will be able to clarify some of those rumours as reality or not.”

Photo: V8 Supercars