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The red lion dodged a bullet last week as its American parent, once the world's largest carmaker by a mile and more, collapsed into chapter 11 bankruptcy after months on financial life support from the US government.
The basics are simple: Holden survives, no jobs lost, product plan continues, and the company has a locked-in role in the New GM which will emerge from Chapter 11 in around three months.
But, as always, there is much more to the story than the bullet-point headlines.
Winning the right to survive, and potentially prosper, has taken close to a year of hard-nosed hard work by the executive team at GM Holden. That work has included restructuring the production plan and plant at Elizabeth in South Australia, getting approval and finance to put the compact Cruze into local assembly and adjusting to the loss of the Pontiac G8 export program.
The senior team also handed itself a 10 per cent pay cut.
Mark Reuss has been at the centre of this firestorm for much of the time since he arrived from Detroit to head up GM Holden, personally driving the pitch to put the Cruze into Elizabeth alongside the Commodore.
He admits he is enjoying the chance to catch his breath after fronting a week of intensive cross-examination of the GM situation from all levels of government, media and his own employees.
So, was it the toughest week of his life as he waited for the chapter 11 announcement and then worked through the whirlwind that followed?
"No. I would say the eight months leading up to last week were the toughest months of my life. It would have been the toughest week if we had failed," Reuss says bluntly during an exclusive Carsguide interview.
So, is he feeling relieved? Or happy?
"A little bit of both. For the last eight months it's been a constant daily struggle to architect our existence in the new GM. Every day the game changes and every day the rules change, and every day someone throws something new into the mix."
"In the end it was a positive outcome. It's a testament to this team. But I never give up and I never quit."
So the result is the right one for Holden and Australia, but Reuss still worries that some people think his company is a basket case being propped up by the government. Quiz him on this and he lights up.
"We haven't taken one government dollar here though all this. We've done this by looking very hard at ourselves and the core business," he says.
"The people who think we're just asking for money from the government are taking a very simplistic view. We're not being bailed out. It's not true.
"We have a pretty good underlying business here if we do this right."
Which leads to the future.
There are still plenty of important questions that have not been answered, either because they were lost in the euphoria of the survival announcement or because Reuss has not had time to pass on the detail.
But he is happy to talk, and even happier to share the Holden vision, as he responds to his first in-depth questioning since the survival announcement.
Q. What is the outlook now for GM Holden?
"We're going to continue to have to prove ourselves to our customers, to the company, to the government and to the country. That doesn't go away. That doesn't ever go away.
"But we have a good handle on what need to do, and continue to do, to be a profitable and sustainable entity going forward.
"Name a wild headwind and we have had it. And we're still here. We know how to do every one of these wild headwinds. I think we have that in hand.
Q. Is New GM a positive move for Holden?
"It's unbelievably positive for Holden. I'm part of a 10-person deal here (at GM) and we are making a new place right to the core. All of the things and all the ways we used to operate for GM and Holden is being looked at.
"It can only be better because the people doing this are the employees of the company who have lived this.
"You will see over the next year, but more in the next 90 days, a new GM re-organisation. You are not going to recognise it. Ninety days is tight to get any new models in the company, but first you will see the new company and then the new cars.
"From Holden, in the next two or three months you are going to see some things that are pretty cool, that are pretty radical."
Q. When will customers notice any changes?
"I think they already have. It wasn't just one day to do this.
"Over the last 18 months we're localising the Cruze, we're going to import the Cruze. There will be product changes locally for our car that are a bit unexpected or a bit fun.
"It's not a light switch. Over the past 18 months we've prepared a new Holden.
"The advertisements for the Cruze position the car and company with a much broader appeal. You'll see asians, females, babies. People who may not have appeared in our commercials in the past."
Q. What are the keys to Holden's position in the New GM structure and the strengths of the company in Australia?
"We now have two architectures in this place, with a great design and engineering base. We're going to use that.
"I'm not going to over-sell it or over-advertise it like we may have done in the past, but it's not going to be the same. We're doing some things with alternate fuels, fuel calibration, that is very advanced stuff."
Q. What about the Commodore? Will it continue as Holden's hero car?
"Yeah, I don't know why it wouldn't be. It's still the best selling car in Australia.
"It's an aspirational car. We're not going to give it away.
"We're on a plan here over the next five or six years where you will see a rapid transformation of this car. Not the styling, but what people think a larger rear-wheel drive car can be and a remarkably efficient, smarter buy than some of the smaller cars around it."
Q. Are there still future export opportunities for the Commodore, or cars based on the VE?
"Absolutely. But te are not going to set the business up to rely on 50 per cent exports any more.
"There will be export business, that's part of the company's DNA, but making that the only play for us to be profitable is not the way we will run the business."
Q. Will there be many changes to the Holden product line-up under New GM, specifically with Opel and Hummer being sold and likely changes for Saab?
"In two years we will have a production lineup you haven't seen before.
"There will be less change in some things than others, but there will be new cars in the air like you've never seen before. In two years time we won't have to apologise for any car in our lineup."
Q. Will the US government's stake in GM have any impact on Holden?
"The Obama administration has stated it has no desire to run General Motors. What they want to ensure is that we come out of the first quarter of 2010 with a company break even at 10 million units in the US. And hopefully with some relied from the global financial crisis a market at around 12 million.
"They want to get out of this as fast as possible."
Q. What is the outlook for Holden's profitability and sales?
"We were profitable here in May and we were profitable in March as well. So we can make profit here, but we need to focus on getting back the business that we've lost. Not the identical business, but in the small car and the VE improvements.
"The profitability piece of this is a real struggle like it is for everyone right now. We're kinda tracking with the market but that's not good enough. We can make good money here in Australia."
Q. What is the biggest opportunity for GM Holden going forward?
"That is a really tough one for me to answer. I still think our small car, along with what we are doing for VE, is a big opportunity.
"But there are some other big opportunities that I cannot talk about. I'm continually excited by what we have here and what we can bring to market.
"It's a special place. The intellectual proper of the people we have here is probably the biggest opportunity."
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