KEY POINTS:
Global demand for green vehicles is likely to stymie production plans for GM Holden's high-performance Coupe 60 concept, the star of the Melbourne motor show.
Holden parent company GM will almost certainly shelve any business case put forward for the next-generation Monaro.
Instead it is focusing on more fuel-efficient projects to meet new fuel economy laws in the United States.
GM vice-president Bob Lutz said at the New York motor show last week that there was no way in the present economic climate that a vehicle like the Coupe 60 would get the go-ahead.
Lutz said work had already stopped on GM's next-generation C7 Corvette to enable the American company to instead pursue greener technology.
"The problem is that it is one of those projects, like the Corvette C7, that has got to be put on the backburner as we wrestle with this whole fuel economy equation," said Lutz.
"We are going to be inventing so many hybrid systems for so many vehicles and going to transmissions with a lot more gears than six, all in the name of meeting fuel economy targets.
"What has to be deferred is the stuff that we, as enthusiasts, would all like to do, like that Coupe and the C7 before that."
Holden needs GM's money and muscle to make the project work. GM Holden chief Mark Reuss said at the Melbourne motor show last month that the Australian carmaker needed healthy export numbers confirmed before the Coupe 60 was approved.
The Coupe 60 is based on the VE Commodore platform. GM is selling rebadged Commodore sedans in the US under the Pontiac label.
The GM general manager for Pontiac, Jim Bunnell, said at the New York show that the architecture might be too old for a Coupe 60-style programme by the time the company was in the position to proceed.
"You wouldn't invest a lot of money on your current architecture base. If you were going to do it, you would wait for the next one," he said.
But never say never.
