Camaro builds converts

This is the car GM Holden developed, but won't sell you: the Camaro. Work to revive the famous badge was done in Australia by Holden's engineers. Strip away the Detroit muscle and underneath is a Commodore skeleton.

When Holden designed the Commodore fundamentals it made them flexible enough to be the starting point for a whole range of large, rear-wheel-drive cars. In the giant that General Motors used to be, there were no end of possibilities.

However, GM could see the traffic lights changing ahead and didn't know whether to accelerate or brake. It ended up doing both, but before other projects could get traction, ran out of money. Apart from a few Commodores rebadged as Pontiacs, the Chevrolet Camaro is the sole result.

It went on sale stateside a year ago and enthusiasts here were left holding their breath. The Camaro has a special place in Australia's racing history as a two-time winner of the touring car championship in the early 1970s, driven by Bob Jane. Kevin Bartlett twice put the car on pole at Bathurst.

Since Holden has no plans to revive the Monaro again, would the US coupe be available in right-hand drive?  On more than one occasion, GM has encouraged the idea. But thanks to the global financial crisis, accountants are calling the tune and the lyrics go: "You say Ca-maa-ro, I say Ca-mair-o . . . let's call the whole thing off.'' For a tiny market such as Australia, the numbers don't add up.

So if you want one, the only option for the foreseeable future is to buy a local conversion of a left-hand drive import. Performax International, based on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, claims to be first to complete the task. It has already converted a few cars and is taking orders for more, with a price of $135,000 on a top-of-the-range V8.

At the Lakeside Raceway north of Brisbane last week the results were on show. There was time to examine Performax's handiwork and drive a few laps of the track.  The Camaro is GM's pitch to US revheads and competes against the Ford Mustang and Dodge Challenger.

Their shapes are all modern versions of the 1960s muscle car classics and the Camaro is one of the more successful, with a low-slung cabin, pronounced haunches and huge 20-inch wheels. The engine will be familiar to HSV owners: GM's 6.2-litre LS3 V8, with 318kW in the six-speed manual Camaro.

It delivers a perfect muscle-car soundtrack -- a laid-back rumble that makes acceleration seem effortless. Compared to an HSV, the Camaro V8 has about 130kg less weight to move.

It's shorter and wider too, and feels nicely balanced through corners. Racetracks can make the firmest suspensions feel soft, but the chassis benefits from the solid fundamentals of the donor Commodore. It's not as crisp, perhaps, as an HSV GTS but tight and enjoyable. The hardest thing to live with would be the spongy brake pedal.

The cabin owes nothing to the Holden sedan and feels half a notch above it for desirability, but no more. Body-coloured trim panels line the doors in a nod to the 1960s while the seats, wheel and gearshift are nicely judged.  The centre console controls are simple and clear, even if the obligatory extra dials are set absurdly low.

Best, though, is that the cabin seems neat and seems to have lost nothing in the conversion. Performax claims to have perfection as its goal and even these early cars had a neatness that could have almost rolled off an assembly line.

Company co-founder Greg Waters believes the results are a pay-off from investment in new technology that changed the way the company tackles each job. Crucial to the process now is a three-dimensional scanner that inputs all the bits that need flipping into a computer program. Then a three-dimensional printer generates a usable part in plastic. If it works, it's used as a pattern to mould as many as they need.

Performax says it's the only conversion company using the system and with 200 finished vehicles a year, it's also the largest. Sports cars such as the Camaro, Corvette and Mustang are the headline acts and Performax imported H2 Hummers when they were popular a few years ago. But its bread and butter are large pick-ups such as the Chevrolet Silverado or GMC Sierra.

There's a small but resilient market for these American staples here, as Ford discovered when it brought in its large F-series trucks a few years ago. In a good year, Ford sold about 2000 F250s, but the range was discontinued in 2007.

Waters says businesses and recreational users will pay a premium for the extra hauling ability these vehicles offer. "Our target market is older people or businesspeople who are buying Chevy trucks to tow their big caravan or fishing boat,'' he explains.

Waters thinks the company will find buyers for about 60 Camaros over the next two years and most of them will be older too, thanks mainly to the price. "Not many young people can write out a $130,000 cheque for a car.'' 

It's certainly a lot to pay for a model that costs $US34,000 ($38,000) in the US, but Waters and his team are only partly to blame. Regulations require imports to be new, which means they incur US sales taxes. Performax has to buy through a US agent rather than direct from dealers, so there's a commission to pay. Then there's shipping costs of about $4000 a car, the Australian import tariff of 5 per cent, GST and the luxury car tax. It quickly adds up.

It also sounds like a tricky operation with a lot of fraught paperwork, and I wonder how it got started. Waters says it began 20 years ago after he and mate Brian Learoyd went backpacking to the US with the aim of buying a car.

"Brian and myself pooled our resources and bought a Corvette in the States and shipped it home. Our intention was to get it converted,'' he says. When they saw what conversion companies were doing, they decided to have a go themselves. Then they did a couple more cars to recoup the administration costs. Before long it had gone beyond a hobby.

"Every time we did a conversion, we enjoyed it and made something out of it. So we said, let's get fair dinkum about it and chase the work.''

The paperwork is still challenging, Water says. Performax is allowed to convert up to 200 examples of one model each year under two different low-volume import schemes.  The cars are not required to undergo complete testing here as long as the overseas standards are recognised in Australia.

Corvettes are the most difficult to convert and the job is getting harder due to the increasing complexity of electronics, Waters says. Although there's never been a car they couldn't do. 

The 3D printer has allowed the company to expand but it's now thinking about the next step. To help it move more mainstream it has recruited Glenn Soper, formerly with Renault and Bentley, as general manager.

Soper says Performax could tackle more models, such as Ford F-series pick-ups, and increase sales by stepping through all the regulatory hoops.  "We're looking at full-volume compliance on particular models, which means we can do as many as we want,'' he says.

The workshop is already expanding and Soper says a presence in other states is also on the agenda. "Melbourne is definitely on the cards and Western Australia would be a priority,'' he says.

Having well-established rivals in Victoria means it won't be easy, but Soper believes the Performax approach gives it an edge.  And once there are a few Camaros running around our roads, that will be a very visible edge indeed.

CHEVROLET CAMARO

Vehicle: Performance coupe
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Outputs: 318kW at 5000rpm and 553Nm at 4500rpm
Transmission: Six-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Price: $135,000 plus on-road costs
On sale: Now