Corsa fails to add up

Australia probably won't see a hot European Corsa in the Holden Special Vehicles line-up any time soon.

The Corsa VXR has been assessed as a potential starter below the turbocharged Astra VXR, which is doing solid but uninspiring numbers for HSV, but has been dismissed as too expensive.

It will be too costly to import and prepare for Australian duty, even though HSV boss Tom Walkinshaw likes the car and sees the need to broaden the base for the hot Holden company.

“The problem you have with Corsa is that to produce cars in Europe is expensive, so the core car ends up expensive before you start working on it,” Walkinshaw says.

“It's a nice little car, but whether you could actually work on it, then get it into that price envelope to get it into the market is still eluding us. We'll look at other base products available in the GM network and decide if there are any we could work on that would be applicable to this market.”

The Corsa VXR has a turbocharged 1.6-litre four-cylinder engine that develops 143kW and 260Nm, good enough to reach 100km/h in 6.8 seconds with a top of more than 220km/h. In Europe it competes against the Peugeot 207 GT and Renault Clio Sport.

HSV is looking to push the Astra with a limited-edition model from Britain, called the Nurburgring, and will take its 2.0-litre turbo engine for use in a new Elfin sports car.

But it cannot make a business case for the smaller Corsa.

“The Corsa is a terrific sporty hot hatch, but because Holden does not have that product range, the after-sales support or parts supply, the business case is not as attractive. We'd have to do it ourselves,” HSV managing director Scott Grant says.

Despite the Corsa failure, Walkinshaw says HSV is committed to expanding its range beyond V8 Commodores.

“We'll broaden the offering over the next few years to cover more of the market,” he says.

“It's not powerplant driven. It's about getting younger people into our products.”

He draws a parallel between how HSV works with GM Holden and the operation of AMG and Mercedes-Benz.

“We make the high-end performance prestige model in that brand and that's what we will continue to do,” he says.

However, changing market forces also mean HSV will canvas other four-cylinder models in the future and Grant says the Astra VXR experience had been good for the company.

“Eighty-one per cent of VXR customers have never bought a HSV car before and half of them are females,” he says.

But Grant says there are still three requirements for a vehicle to join the HSV line-up.

“It has to be complementary to Holden, it has to fit our brand DNA and, economically, it has to make sense.”