If Holden’s marketing team had their way, HSV would be turning out HSV Epica’s along side the Commodore range, however HSV have other ideas. HSV chairman John Crennan said his company is not interested in the Korean range from Holden.

“We haven’t got plans for the Epica, if you are going to do something at a local level, the costs of doing the recalibration on an Epica – and to design the body packages – is exactly the same as it is on a Commodore, and we can’t sustain it.” said Mr Crennan,

Of course, to avoid a PR disaster, HSV have used the “not enough demand” excuse to avoid the real question of weather or not “the epica is good enough” to sport a HSV badge.

“Our bread and butter will always be the V-car (VE Commodore) and the W-car (WM Statesman/Caprice),” he said.

Last week we had the Holden Epica in our garage (expect a road test review in the next few days) and although the car proved itself a worthy adversary to its rivals, we can’t imagine a HSV Epica.

Although with the XR performance range from Kia coming in the next few years, and the next Hyundai Tiburon set to come with a turbocharger and a rear-wheel drive platform, it seems that Korean cars may well be recognized as performance cars in the next decade.