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Getting
parking space near HDT Special Vehicles in Levenson Street, North
Melbourne is harder than beating Peter Brock at Bathurst.
SS Commodores and other special vehicles, with factory ordering
stickers on the windows and pre-delivery plastic protecting interiors,
line the street outside the ‘Special Vehicles’ workshop. Other
Commodores cruise the street as part of road testing, but also to
find a vacant parking spot. Still more of Brock’s creations
congest the yard at Bob Jane’s Southern Motors, just nearby.
There
is no room inside HDT Special Vehicles and plainly the venture is
a great success. It’s ironic that success has come at an all
time low. While low volume operation like HDT Special Vehicles
cannot be expected to be a financial fill up for GMH during hard
times, the image building and goodwill generated by Brock’s machines
must be considered a priceless investment in a recession rid future.
HDT Special
Vehicles has just celebrated its third birthday. The operation
started rather modestly at Stanley Street, North Melbourne, moved
and then moved again to its current address of 12 months.
Both moves were forced by the business out-growing its home.
That problem is rearing its ugly head yet again, but rather than
dislocate the business by shifting for a third time in three years,
the plan is to make best use of the space and contain its activities.
But another move is definitely on the cards.
The success
of HDT Special Vehicles Pty Ltd shows that the exercise of winning
on the racetrack is a great grounding for this type of vehicle.
But also the special vehicle operation is imbued with the same spirit
of enthusiasm and dynamism of the Marlboro Holden Dealer Team racing
Division, run by Larry Perkins. The source of that is obviously
the dominant personality of Peter Brock, yet democracy works well
at Special Vehicles. Peter’s younger brother Phil gets the
title of Manager, Special Vehicles. He has day-to-day responsibility
of managing the Special Vehicles workshop in association with Peter.
This leaves Peter and John Harvey, largely free from workshop detail,
to oversee the business side of Special Vehicles and also be involved
in the racing area. All the design idea’s come from Peter,
who liaises directly with GMH to see what is practical.
Apart
from the staff involved in Special Vehicles administration and the
spare parts shop, there is now about 20 workshop staff, including
mechanics, spray painters, vehicle preparers and fibreglass fabricators.
On the premises there is the latest ventilated and heated spray
booth, a fabrication area for fibreglass cosmetics and a separate
workshop area for the machining of cylinder heads and the modifications
of suspension components. The rest of the workshop space is
taken up with cars in various stages of preparation, before going
off to dealers.
The spray
painting area is one of the latest additions. It is an essential
part of the operation because new GMH automotive finishes have to
be matched exactly and meet GMH’s quality standards.
HDT
Special Vehicles recently adopted a new assembly procedure for its
Commodore SS, a procedure which plugs it even more firmly into the
GMH system.
When the
operation kicked off, Commodores were built on line at GMH minus
the special components and then shipped to HDT Special Vehicles
for final assembly by hand. Then each car was picked up by
GMH and delivered to the dealer who placed the order through GMH’s
normal dealer ordering procedures. John Harvey explained that
the change was all about shortening the time between the placing
of the order by the buyer at the dealership and the delivery, as
well as cutting down the labour cost involved in fitting the special
components at North Melbourne.
Until
recently, GMH was delivering standard engines to the workshop on
a pallet of six. HDT Special Vehicle mechanics would then
change over the cylinder heads and manifold, and then the engines
were returned to the GMH assembly line, just like any other engine.
It has now taken a step further with Special Vehicles supplying
the SS heads and manifolds direct to GMH for assembly on the assembly
line. “It took us about eight hours work just to change the
cylinder heads, “ said John Harvey. “To do all the cosmetics,
interiors and suspension too, it took a long time. That’s
the way it works at the moment.”
This year
HDT Special Vehicles notched up its 1000th car. At this time
however the operation is rapidly approaching 1500 and if all the
special orders are taken into account, more than 2000 vehicles have
received the ‘Brock’ treatment. Special Vehicles has produced
520 HDT Commodores, and more than 700 Commodore SSs. Another
1000 SSs are scheduled to go through the workshop up to next March
when a sensational new “SS” is expected to come off the drawing
board, to coincide with the launching of the VK model Commodore.
The workshop
is not only brimful of SS Commodores. A fair percentage of
the operation’s work is being taken up with the relatively new Australian
Dealer Pack. This pack, which centres around 4.2 and 5.0 V8
engine modifications, was born out of requests by dealers who wanted
something special, but not necessarily a full-bore SS. This
pack and the detailed cosmetic changes that are requested by individuals,
is being offered on both Commodore and Statesman. Several hundred
of these ADP’s have been churned out so far. Essentially,
the pack involves fitting the SS mechanicals to just about anything
from the base Commodore V8 to the SLE and Statesman Caprice.
Sometimes the SS mechanicals are all that is fitted, while other
vehicles are also required to be fitted with special seats and/or
special wheels and tyres.
A popular
trend developing with the pack is the request for the full SS Group
Three treatment on fully optioned SLE V8’s including the aerodynamic
body add-ons. A good example of that was the full treatment
recently on a two-tone maroon and grey SLE, skirts, bonnet scoop
and spoilers were painted to match the factory colour scheme.
But while
Special Vehicles has been working on Commodores mostly, it has done
styling changes and modifications on the whole GMH range, even Jackaroos
and Rodeos. “The car we have received the most publicity out
of, because we have produced the most, has been the Commodore.
But we do everything else,” John Harvey said. The VK successor
to the SS should be something else. It may not be called the
SS, but it will certainly be something along those lines.
“There is no point is carrying the SS through three models, when
you change a model, you change it.” John said.
But while
everybody awaits that new sporty Commodore, HDT Special Vehicles
is evaluating a limited run of locally made assembled Opel Monza
coupes. Both Peter John spent some time at GM-Opel in West
Germany earlier this year investigating the feasibility of such
an exotic project. The intention is to import bodies from
Opel in Germany and fit them out with Holden mechanicals including
the SS engine and suspension bits. The ‘mule’ was expected
from Germany shortly after Bathurst. It will be fitted with
proper mechanicals and sent out around GMH’s Lang Lang Proving Ground
to test it out.
The popularity
of the ADP indicates that there is a strong market for these types
of vehicles, especially now that car companies have got right out
of the low volume ‘sports’ market themselves. These vehicles
are certainly not cheap though. A typical up-market ADP pack,
for instance, can boost a Holden price tag from say, $25,000.00
to $30,000.00 and that’s big money for a Holden. “Fortunately
there is no shortage of people wanting to buy this sort of car,”
John Harvey said.
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