JAC joins the race to be the Chinese Holden and to build the perfect Australian car, as it applies a local tune to the 2026 JAC Hunter plug-in hybrid ute

JAC has joined the race to be the new Chinese Holden in Australia, raiding the now-defunct homegrown brand's former engineering stocks to deliver an Aussie-feeling ride and handling tune to its vehicles.

It follows in the footsteps of GWM, which not only appointed former Holden ace Rob Trubiani as its engineering lead across Australia and New Zealand, but also took a residency at Lang Lang, Holden's old proving ground in Victoria.

For JAC, the answer was former Holden chassis engineer Michael Barber, who is now the Australian lead of international automotive engineering firm Multimatic. Unlike GWM, JAC has recruited Multimatic for a one-model project, the tuning of its new Hunter plug-in hybrid ute. 

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But the work won't stop there, with JAC planning a host of new models (an Everest-rivalling SUV, an answer to the Ford Super Duty, even a bite-sized city EV), all of which will likely get the Barber treatment.

"Let's put it this way: the amount of feedback I got today and in the last little while about how important it is to make this as much of an Australian car as possible, I would be silly not to consider that and prioritise that for other future models," JAC's local MD, Ahmed Mahmoud, told CarsGuide. 

"Michael's done a wonderful job with us. We've been very open, and China has responded accordingly, so I don't think that will be the last time they work with Michael."

That would pit JAC and GWM in a battle to produce the most 'Australian' cars, and see two former Holden engineers go head-to-head to do it. But first, they have to define exactly what an Australian car is.

For Barber, that means essentially white-sheeting the standard Chinese tune, with the handling ace going through 62 damper rebuilds, and changing almost all the mounting points, to settle on the Hunter’s final ride and handling balance. 

"Different vehicles have different priorities, of course, and we always need to focus on what the main priority is for a particular vehicle. But in high-payload vehicles, the bigger the payload compared to kerb mass of a vehicle, then, frankly, the tougher it gets to tune it," he says.

"We want agility and stability, which are basically opposites, and we want both at the same time. We want to strike a good trade between compliance and control. We want to have a good steering connection, the faithfulness of steering response, and that guiding the vehicle can be almost subconscious to the driver.

"This requires steering response to be predictable, proportional and without a delay. And of course, we want ride comfort and isolation. 

"And whatever the payload, in my opinion, the vehicle needs to be able to manage its full payload acceptably while also having an acceptable level of comfort, laden or unladed."