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  Mark Simcoe is now GM's executive director of North American exterior design and is confident the Cruze hatchback is a potential winner outside Australia.

Australia will have a new export champion next year when Holden unveils its homegrown Cruze.

The baby hatchback is being set for major overseas sales, as well as a global role on the design and engineering front. GM Holden is the `home room' for the Cruze hatchback project, as it was for the Chevrolet Camaro now built and sold in North America, and that means any international use of the design will be tied to Fishermans Bend.

Export plans are definitely being formulated for the car, even if GM Holden refuses to confirm a deal. "We've got nothing specific to flag right now but there's no way we'd turn our back on a good opportunity," says Scott Whiffin, the spokesman for GM Holden. But the interest in the car from other areas of the General Motors empire is obvious and is flagged this week by former Holden design chief Mike Simcoe.

He is now GM's executive director of North American exterior design and is confident the Cruze hatchback is a potential winner outside Australia. "I have seen the design and there is no reason why it couldn't have applications in markets outside Australia," says Simcoe.

He is speaking at the Los Angeles Auto Show as GM launches the Cruze sedan already sold in Australia into showrooms in North America. And he hints of an American connection for the baby Aussie hatch. "Traditionally, hatchbacks have not been a big seller in this market but there is no reason to think that it couldn't have some impact following on the launch of the Cruze (sedan)," says Simcoe.

There is also potential for the Cruze hatch in Europe, where the style of car is far more widely accepted. Simcoe's enthusiasm for the hatch, scheduled for a production start in the second half of next year, is more good news on the car for Holden. The Cruze sedan has already rocketed ahead of the company's modest sales predictions.

The American unveiling of the Cruze also opens a potential grab-bag of goodies for the hatch, which Holden already says will be better equipped than the Korean-made sedan. A 1.4-litre turbocharged engine would be an obvious choice with 103kWs and 200Nm, as well as six-speed manual and automatic gearboxes.

The US Cruze sedan also has 10 airbags, four more than the Australian model with twin front kneebags and rear side bags, and it gets a multi-link rear suspension system which is already flagged for the down under hatch. While an export future for the Cruze Hatch is still in the early stages, Holden's next big export opportunity moved a step closer at the LA Show with a prototype Caprice V8 kitted out in standard North American police trim.

Wearing a Chevrolet badge the long-wheelbase Caprice is sitting pretty as police departments across North America look to update their fleets and replace the ageing Ford Crown Victoria sedan which, while it has been synonymous with police operations for decades, is about to go out of production. "I reckon it is the sort of car that should be very attractive to police departments right across North America," Simcoe says. "They have a standard specification requirement and a big rear-wheel drive V8 hits right at the heart of that. "There is other rear-wheel drive architecture in the GM world but that is in the higher end of the market, such as Cadillac. The Commodore platform is very cost effective and perfectly suited to this sort of application."

Chevrolet has been agressively marketing the Caprice already built in left-hand drive in Australia for export to the Middle East across the country in a bid to maximise its timing advantage over Ford which says it has a Crown Victoria replacement in the works but it is still some time away from being ready to supply. "It (the Caprice) was shown at a rally with about 150 police departments there," Simcoe says. "I understand there was huge interest."

Simcoe says estimates of just how many cars the police contract could involve are fairly sketchy but, with markets in the United States and Canada, it could be well over 50,000.