Exclusive Aussie heart for Cadillac SRX

GM Holden will be shipping at least 2500 2.8-litre versions of its Australian-made Alloytec V6 engine to the Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico where the 2010 SRX is manufactured.

"I guess that means there will be a little bit of Aussie heart in those Cadillacs," GM Holden Australia boss Mark Reuss says.

The fillip for Holden's export aspirations couldn't have come at a better time as the company is still reeling from a disastrous six months at the hands of the global financial crisis.

So far this year plans to sell a Pontiac version of the VE Ute to the United States were canned, then Pontiac itself fell over the in GM global restructure taking with it more than 30,000 potential Commodore-based G8 exports.

And to top it off sales of the VE into the Middle-East have also taken a hit as economic reality bites. "When you lose that sort of percentage (around 70 per cent) of half of your production it is always going to hurt," Reuss conceded at the recent launch of the Cruze small car.

However, the news of the Cadillac order is just the sort of pick-me-up the local manufacturer needs. "It (the engine plant) won a GM global quality award and on the back of that came the order for 2500 of the engines for Cadillac," Reuss says. "That is pretty pleasing."

There is no indication whether more orders will be forthcoming but that is a distinct possibility. Reuss says that following meetings in Detroit he is comfortable that the action plan for GM Holden will give the company the best chance of coming out the other end of the global restructuring as a working entity.

"We feel very good about what we have done here and where we are in the future (of General Motors)," Reuss says. "There are no guarantees in any of this. None at all ... and we have treated it that way from day one."

However, he says he believes that the Holden operation and its historic position in the Australian market makes the company far more attractive to GM as an internal asset rather than as one to be auctioned off.

"I think it has huge value internally (to GM). Holden is a very powerful tool as a product and branding standpoint ... I would say if anything this (situation) has focussed our business on what we need to do to be a good company in Australia first and anything we do outside that as an exporter is a great thing but to have any entity fully dependent on export markets in this world we are dealing with today is probably not the right business model."

Reuss says that the company has not run a survival scenario that does not include Commodore. "That is not something we have studied. We are still the best selling car here and we think the things we are going to do to Commodore over the next few years maybe makes us potentially the only game in town. Some of our competitors have revealed some questions about future business plans on their products ... and I am overjoyed (with that)."