It’s one thing to make headlines, but the follow-through is the most important of them all. Guido Dumarey’s name first came up weeks ago, after reports of a secret bid to save the Zeta-platform, which underpins the Holden Commodore as we know it today, and to purchase the Elizabeth manufacturing facility from General Motors and Holden.
Since then, Dumarey has confirmed his bid for both Zeta and Elizabeth, but who is he?
Motoring caught up with the Belgian entrepreneur in an exclusive one-on-one interview to ask some of the most important questions regarding his plan to save a major portion of Australian manufacturing, which you can find right here.
Dumarey certainly seems to have the drive, and the knowledge, to ensure a successful takeover. He currently oversees Punch Powerglide, a former GM transmission plant. The plant was scheudled to close in 2014, and lay off its 1,000 employee workforce. Dumarey has since turned operations around, retained the workforce and is beginning to build ZF eight-speed automatic transmissions for BMW.
He also happens to supply six-speed automatic transmissions for the V6-powered Commodore, which is where he began to study and learn about the potential the Zeta platform possesses.
Will Dumarey turn dark days into a bright future? We don’t know, but he seems like just the guy to try.
Comments
Good luck to him. I hope somehow he can succeed but my biggest question is that even if he buys the plant and GM give him the license to Zeta, what is he going to do about parts?
Many parts manufacturers are planning to shut up shop for good. He is going to have a tough time convincing them to plan to stay open, which may require additional financial investment on their part and they may see his plans for Elizabeth as dubious. Importing parts is only going to get more expensive as the AUD drops.
Dumarey is hoping that if Zeta is preserved through some deal, that he can woo Toyota to keep manufacturing domestically. That one-two punch would be sufficient to keep parts rolling out.
Toyota is an interesting angle. Ford and GM have already shifted to design shops, but Toyota was in Oz mostly for manufacturing. They are the most likely to reverse their decision based on currency winds… but even then, like everything else in this, it’s a long shot.
If Dumarey can’t win Toyota over, he will have to source those parts from China. GM is unlikely to give him access to Holden spare part supplies, but there are US suppliers and Chinese suppliers that are already sourcing parts for Zeta for Camaro.
I don’t think parts are the problem with this deal. I think Detroit is.
I hope it works for all down under but this is a big risk.
My fear is to make this work and keep it alive he will have to take the car much more upscale to deal with lower volumes. That will help only a few to continue to buy this car.
Also development for improvements would be difficult to pay for here.
If you look at the change in the Alpha Camaro from the Zeta Camaro you can see where this car needs to go. Getting there would not be cheap.
This is not a Checker Cab where you can just keep building the same thing forever. People will want advances and you will have to make them to keep it alive long term.
He would have to do without the Holden brand name.
His reference to BMW and the whole German automobile industry ignited the thought that he should have teamed up the the grandson of Carl F. W. Borgward who is trying to revive that brand name. He wants to get somebody to manufacture cars fitting that currently empty shell. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgward
From my personal experience with Dumarey in Belgium, I know that Dumarey is only in for the money. He extracts as much cash as possible out of his companies, and then drops them. Nine out of ten : Dumarey taking over a company is bankruptancy within 2 years, leaving behind him an empty shell, the workers get nothing.
Do not trust him!