One of the feathers in the hat of Holden was that it was one of only a handful of locations in the General Motors empire that had the ability to design, engineer and manufacture a car from the very first line on a piece of paper all the way to the finished product in showrooms. 

It used this capability to good effect over the years by creating some jaw-dropping concept cars, often previewing future design directions, sometimes testing out ideas on the public and occasionally just for the sake of it. 

Here is our list of Holden’s top 10 concept creations, presented in chronological order. 

1969 Holden Hurricane 

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Holden’s first concept car was also its most outlandish. Its ground-hugging dimensions and supercar layout – the iconic 253ci V8 sitting midships – were wild enough, but it included air-conditioning, a rear-view camera and even an early iteration of navigation (though involving magnets rather than satellites). 

Having been stuck in storage, pilfered for parts and shuffled around various museums throughout the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, the Hurricane was reacquired by Holden in 2006 which completed a comprehensive restoration, unveiling it at the 2011 Motorclassica at Melbourne’s Royal Exhibition Building, the same venue in which it had wowed crowds 42 years earlier. 

1970 Holden GTR-X 

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Just a year later Holden did it again with the stunning GTR-X, a Torana-based wedge that would’ve been Australia’s first true sports car. Penned by Phil Zmood, it was intended to use the running gear from the LJ GTR XU1 and while there was plenty of momentum behind the project, the planets never quite aligned. 

Three prototypes were built, though one was crashed and another never completed, but the projected price tag was too high and the projected sales volumes too low to get it over the line, especially once the Datsun 240Z arrived offering basically the same package at a lower price. 

1998 Holden Coupe 

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At the 1998 Sydney Motor Show Ford unveiled the AU Falcon. Holden, on the other hand, took the covers off the Coupe Concept aka The New Monaro. While the years have been kind to the AU, at the time it was the sublime and the ridiculous. 

Created in secret, the VT-based concept had an elegance that the later – still very handsome – production Monaro lacked. The public went nuts for it and made the decision to revive one of Holden’s most famous nameplates a no-brainer. 

2001 Holden Jack8  

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Looking like something Jeep would take to its annual Jamboree, the Jack8 concept was revealed in 2001 to revive interest in Holden’s aging Jackaroo off-road SUV. A hatchet was taken to a standard four-door wagon, elongating the front doors 200mm and smoothing off the rears and the tailgate. 

A 50mm lift and Mickey Thompson Baja Claw tyres took care of the stance, inside there were Monaro bucket seats and a fully sick stereo system with subwoofer, while under the bonnet the standard diesel made way for a 225kW Gen III V8.  

2001 HSV HRT Maloo

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Concept cars are rarely shrinking violets, but even by the standards of the breed the HSV HRT Maloo Edition was wild, sitting on the stage at the 2001 Sydney Motor Show like it was the final round of the Mr Olympia judging. 

If anything, the go outweighed the show, with an enlarged (and fully functional) 6.2-litre V8 producing 350kW/600Nm attached to a six-speed manual. Wider tracks, tyres and monster brakes rounded out the package. A wilder ute wouldn’t reach production until the HSV Gen-F GTS Maloo. 

2002 Holden SSX

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At a cursory glance the SSX looks like a mildly tweaked VY SS, but there are plenty of devils in the details. The only panel it shared with a regular Commodore was the bonnet, the pumped guards required to cover the wider tracks necessitated by its hidden party trick – all-wheel drive. 

Using the drivetrain that would debut a year later in the Adventra, the SSX also floated the idea of a split hatch tailgate, as much to draw the punters’ gaze to the concept as anything. While the SSX never made production, the idea of a high-performance all-wheel drive did emerge from Clayton in the form of the HSV Coupe4. 

2002 HSV HRT 427

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Is this Holden’s greatest ‘what if’? A car that, if produced, had a chance of butting heads with the 911 GT2 as the wildest road-racer of the early 21st century. Powered by the 7.0-litre V8 from the Corvette C5R with brakes and suspension to match, HSV announced it planned to build 50 at $215,000 apiece. 

While an extraordinary amount of money at that time, it wasn’t enough to make the project financially feasible. With hindsight, HSV coulda-woulda-shoulda upped the price and the production run but perhaps the difficulty it had shifting its eventual 7.0-litre production car, the W427, suggests it made the right call after all. 

2004 Holden Torana TT36 

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The TT36 gave the world its first look at the exterior and interior design language that would appear on the VE Commodore, but its wider purpose was to allow General Motors to consider a small, premium rear-drive sedan for global sales – a Holden 3-Series, if you like. 

Unfortunately, bar some of the styling, none of it made production, not even the 280kW/480Nm 3.6-litre twin-turbo V6 that would’ve given Holden and HSV a direct competitor to the Falcon XR6 Turbo and FPV Typhoon.  

2005 Holden Efijy

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It’s rare that manufacturers allow themselves true flights of fancy. It’s a business, after all, and every dollar must be accounted for, but it’s fair to say the publicity the mind-blowing Efijy generated paid for itself many, many times over. 

The brainchild of Holden designer Richard Ferlazzo, it was a car that would’ve comfortably sat in the Summernats Elite judging hall, with its wild proportions – inspired by the iconic CadZZilla owned by ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons – beautifully trimmed interior and 480kW/775Nm supercharged Corvette engine. 

2008 Holden Coupe 60 

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Riding high after the launch of the VE Commodore, Holden managed to keep the muscular Coupe 60 a secret right up to the very eve of the 2008 Melbourne Motor Show. Aiding in this was the fact that the car was actually built in Japan, but the two-door VE – or let’s face it, the third-generation Monaro – did its job. 

An SS V prototype was chopped in height and length and fitted with the 307kW/550Nm 6.0-litre V8 that did duty in the E-Series HSVs at the time, but despite the positive response the automotive world was a different place compared to 10 years earlier and the sums on a production version never stacked up, especially with the fifth-generation Camaro imminent.