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And those plans are continuing full-steam ahead despite global uncertainty about the future of local manufacturing and the inability of senior management to offer guarantees about anything outside the next three months.
``I can't guarantee anything about what is going to happen a year from now,'' GM Holden boss Mark Reuss said speaking at the launch of the imported Cruze small car. ``You are asking me to whistle next year's hit tune — I can't do that. What I can tell you is that we are clearing out the Southern body shop in Adelaide right now in preparation for the tool sets going in there to make the car.''
It is expected that the new car to be built in Adelaide will be a localised version of the Cruze with designer Tony Stolfo confirming that styling work is proceeding for the small car with plans to make-over some of the external styling. ``If you take away some of the quirkiness of this car ... make it Australian quirkiness — then you could have an idea where it is going,'' Stolfo, whose team had no input into the external style of the imported car, said.
Holden has already announced that the locally produced car will be made as both a sedan and a hatch. The imported global Cruze will be on sale in June with a choice of a 1.8-litre petrol engine or 2.0-litre turbo diesel with five-speed manual or six-speed automatic gearbox. The petrol cars will be available in both a CD trim at $20,990 nfor the manual or upper-grade CDX at $23,990. The diesel will be offered only in CD trim at $23,990. Automatic is a $2000 option for all models.
However, Reuss maintains that the locally built car will not simply take over from the imported model and would be substantially different raising the possibility of running with a dual model strategy selling both the imported and the locally-manufactured models, at least in the short term.
''This (the new Cruze) is not the car we are going to build in Adelaide ... this is the architecture we are going to build in Adelaide,'' Reuss said. ``There may be design changes, there may be engineering changes ... I am not going to stand here and reveal what we are going to do for the local car. I can't, it is going to be a tough time for us.''
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