The Lang Lang Proving Grounds of now-defunct GM Australian subsidiary Holden may soon be sold to an unknown purchaser, after remaining on the market for three years with no buyer for the historic test facility, which was used in the development of various Holden vehicles.
Besides the identity of the company purchasing Lang Lang, the exact sum being offered for the site is also unknown at this point, though it is said by the Berwick Gazette to be in excess of AU$25 million.
More details of the purchase will become public in early October 2024 according to Lee Holdsworth, a quasi-retired motorsports racing driver who is currently a real estate agent with commercial firm Coldwell Banker Richard Ellis. Per Holdsworth, the unknown buyer will “continue utilizing the track,” but will also protect the nearby environment as conservation organizations want.
One such organization, Save Western Port Woodlands, has been pressuring the government to buy the Lang Lang Proving Grounds. While this did not occur, the environmental association seems pleased with the anonymous buyer’s pledge to keep the site’s bushland undamaged. As its representative Tim O’Brien explained,” our great fear was that this site might fall into the hands of sand mining interests.”
While the sand miners are “devastating this habitat and removing rare coastal forest,” O’Brien said the actual purchaser “recognized the value of the habitat and the importance of the Proving Grounds site to the maintenance of the Western Port forest corridor.”
The Lang Lang Proving Grounds were acquired by Vietnamese automaker VinFast back in 2020 after Holden was retired by GM. VinFast paid AU$35 million, or about $25.4 million in US currency, for the 2,155-acre site, intending to use it as a springboard to launching a new series of vehicles for the Asia-Pacific and Oceania markets that would be tested at Lang Lang.
These plans rapidly fell through, however, and by August 2021 VinFast put the Lang Lang location up for sale. The site remaining available, but without buyer interest, for about three years until the recent offer came through.
Save Western Port Woodlands emphasized the environmental value of the property attached to Lang Lang, where Holden personnel noted the presence of “the endangered southern brown bandicoot, powerful owl, white-footed dunnart and swift parrot.”
Now, the organization hints, the purchaser may use the proving grounds for testing EVs, as it says the new owners “represent forward-looking technologies to reduce the climate impact of transport and personal mobility.”
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