Holden test track for sale again after new owner quits Australia

The former Holden test track in Lang Lang will soon have a ‘for sale’ sign out the front – and 60 engineers will be out of work – after the new owner who paid $36.3 million for the facility decided to pack up and leave Australia after less than 12 months in operation.

The top secret proving ground – located about 90km south-east of Melbourne – was the home to every Australian-developed Holden since 1957.

It was sold to Vietnamese start-up car company VinFast in the wake of the Holden closure at the end of 2020.

VinFast had vowed to hire more than 100 former Holden, Ford and Toyota engineers following the shutdown of Australian car manufacturing in 2017.

Although VinFast cars (an example of which is pictured above) were to be built and sold overseas, much of the engineering work was intended to be done by Australian engineers.

However, cracks started to appear in the ambitious plan when VinFast closed its Port Melbourne engineering centre in May 2021, axing about 50 jobs in the process.

At the time, VinFast said the former Holden test track – and the 60 staff located there – would be unaffected by the Port Melbourne closure.

However, staff at the proving ground have since told Drive they could see the end of the road soon after the closure of VinFast’s Port Melbourne engineering centre.

Company insiders, speaking on condition of anonymity, said VinFast’s engineering work had dried up over the past few months, with only about a dozen electric and petrol cars available for development work.

"The company is going in a new direction," said one insider. "They are even scaling back their engineering operations in Vietnam. It appears they are trying to outsource most of the engineering work now."

Test track staff were told yesterday the VinFast facility will be closed by the end of September 2021 and put up for sale.

The VinFast head office in Vietnam has today issued the following statement: "Due to unexpected situations brought about by COVID-19, we have to relocate our operation back to Vietnam to ensure product development progress. In the long-term future, VinFast still considers Australia as one of its strategic markets.”

Drive understands that VinFast may eventually return to Australia, to sell motor vehicles rather than develop them here.

Industry insiders believe VinFast – which is owned by one of Vietnam’s richest men – may struggle to recoup the $36.3 million that Victorian government documents show it paid US car giant General Motors for the facility.

Many industry insiders speculated the test track site is worth closer to $20 million.

With the facility now for sale again, there is a chance local environmental groups may restart their campaign to have some or all of the site rezoned as a protected area.

An environmental group called Save The Holden Bushlands, headed by author, wine maker, and former motoring journalist Tim O’Brien (pictured below, far right), last year petitioned Bass Coast Shire Council and the Victorian Government to have the site protected and bought back by local authorities.

Environmentalists say the Lang Lang facility is home to a number of endangered animals including the Southern Brown Bandicoot, the Swift Parrot, and the Long-nosed Bandicoot. It is also key to the survival of certain native grasses and swamp species in the area.

The plants and animals inside the facility have largely been shielded from nearby urban sprawl over the past 64 years, because the entire perimeter of the top secret site has been fenced off from the outside world.

When General Motors owned the site, the company allowed environmental groups access to periodically monitor local flora and fauna, given the environment inside the vast 877-hectare facility – with 18km of fencing – hasn’t changed much in half a century.

Test tracks such as the former Holden proving ground are used by car makers to develop future models away from the public eye.

A 44km network of roads – designed to replicate real-world conditions – enabled Holden to torture test vehicles in secret, years before they were due in showrooms.

It is unclear what the future holds for the site. One of the earlier candidates linked to the sale before VinFast signed the deal was trucking magnate Lindsay Fox, who owns a similar vehicle testing facility near Anglesea and the nearby race track at Phillip Island.

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