The biggest threat to Hyundai and Kia? Former Holden engineer to give GWM the edge over Chinese rivals with Australia-specific ride and handling program but when will the changes arrive on the GWM Haval H6, Tank 300, and Cannon ute?

Hyundai and Kia’s rise in Australia can be put down to a number of elements, but one of the key things which has elevated the Korean pair to two of the country’s top auto brands is a strong local tuning and engineering program.

This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the newer players on the Australian scene, with GWM recently announcing that it will be the first Chinese carmaker to set up a similar program Down Under.

GWM signalled some time ago its intention to localise some elements of its vehicles, specifically ride, handling and advanced driver assistance features, and now it’s about to kick off.

Last week GWM announced it had hired former GM Holden chief engineer Rob Trubiani as its new Product Engineering Manager.

In his 15 years as the lead engineer at Holden, Trubiani worked across brake, chassis, vehicle dynamics and technical integration.

A highly regarded vehicle dynamics engineer, Trubiani has developed “a deep understanding of road conditions across the ANZ region and of the vehicle characteristics preferred by customers across the region,” according to GWM Australia.

Trubiani starts with GWM Australia and New Zealand in April this year and will initially be a team of one. He will be responsible for setting up the program and creating a specific “GWM ride and handling feel”, according to company executives.

2025 GWM Haval H6 GT PHEV

The program is expected to focus on ride, comfort, handling and steering, taking into account Australia and NZ’s unique - and often rough - road conditions and harsh environments.

GWM ANZ Head of Marketing and Communications, Steve Maciver, told CarsGuide recently it will be a significant undertaking to build a program for the carmaker that focuses on improving refinement based on customer and media feedback. He added it would not happen overnight.

“So we expect you're going to see improvements coming through on the first cars later this year, and it will be ongoing throughout the range beyond that. It's not a one stop, we fix one car. We've got to keep evolving, keep moving forward,” he said.

GWM ANZ Managing Director Charles Zhao added that while there has not yet been a specific local tuning program, research and development (R&D) specialists from GWM China have made significant improvements to local cars in the past couple of years.

“Maybe I’ve already heard lots of journalists saying when they tested these new models, they can see improvement on the ADAS system. We do not have a very sophisticated local tuning process [but] we do have the R&D people from China. They visit Australia frequently, and they are doing lots of road tests, and take road maps and doing lots of tests in China.”

Maciver added that there has been, and will continue to be, constant improvements driven by the R&D team from China, alongside the new localised program.

Rob Trubiani

“As an example we had eight engineers down for pretty much the whole month of January, working with us at the head office going off in cars for days at a time, testing, towing, heating and cooling ADAS systems. All of that work has been taken back to head office with a view to improving and refining the products we have today,” he said.

“So just to be clear, as much as we are looking to invest and go bigger on that, refinements will still continue to flow through. For further refinements there's going to be a more ongoing piece.”