Australian-made Chevrolet Corvette rival? HSV veterans want to take on Porsche 911 and Audi R8 and with locally made supercar

Australia is unlikely to ever mass-produce cars again, but that doesn’t mean we can’t build world-class vehicles. And the team at Walkinshaw Automotive Group wants to take on the very best with an Australian rival to the likes of the C8 Chevrolet Corvette, Audi R8 and Porsche 911.

While it may sound far-fetched at first, for those unfamiliar, Walkinshaw Automotive Group (WAG) is the same operation behind Holden Special Vehicles, the company that produced some of the world’s best sports sedans, including the HSV GTSR W1 - the fastest and most powerful production car ever built in Australia. In other words, they have the pedigree.

WAG now specialises in engineering and design work for other companies, including converting the Chevrolet Silverado to right-hand drive for General Motors Specialty Vehicles (GMSV) as well as designing and producing the limited-edition Volkswagen Amarok W580.

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WAG designer Julian Quincey, the man responsible for penning the GTSR W1 and the Amarok W580 amongst others, believes the company has all the facilities in place to create a bespoke sports car.

“That would be my dream,” Mr Quincey admitted. “Obviously, we have a design facility, we’ve got an engineering facility, we’ve got the people, we’ve got the skills. Basically, this could open up the doors to work with anyone that has a dream - we could deliver [it].”

It’s a view supported by David Kermond, the chief engineer who oversaw the enhancements to the Amarok W580. The long-time WAG employee believes the company is uniquely positioned in this part of the world to design, engineer, test and produce a low-volume performance car.

“It’s almost a turn-key facility,” Mr Kermond explained. “You say, ‘we want this’, and we can turn this on, create a prototype and develop it and sell it.”

He added: “Our test facility is one of the best in the southern hemisphere when it comes to testing labs, rig testing. We can do anything in that regard; seat belt pull tests, cab pull tests, durability tests. We can scan road surfaces and play that back into the car in the workshop and make changes on-the-fly in the workshop before we head out to real-world testing.”

WAG is uniquely positioned in this part of the world to design, engineer, test and produce a low-volume performance car.

While both the designer and engineer agree a sports car would be an ideal project for WAG, both stressed no current project is underway and any such supercar would need outside backing.

They also ruled out the possibility of WAG, or aftermarket parts off-shoot Walkinshaw Performance, doing anything to the new Corvette locally, despite their experience with HSV tuning GM vehicles for local conditions, unless they get permission from Detroit HQ.

“I think there are a lot of options there for Walkinshaw Performance to be able to, but it’s a GMSV product, a GM product, so on some level they will have to give their blessing,” Mr Kermond said.

Mr Quincey added: “I think GM are very precious about touching their Corvette.”