Tonsley Park car plant site becomes a centre for innovation: Holden's factory shuts in 2017
The South Australian government took over the Mitsubishi Motors Australia Limited (MMAL) car assembly plant at Tonsley Park in 2009 after the company had removed its manufacturing equipment.
MMAL still has sales and marketing staff at Tonsley Park, and it still able to perform design changes required to fit Mitsubishi Motors Corporation's global products entering the Australian market.
The MMAL test track site at Tailem Bend has a new life as the $80 million motorsport park being built by the Shahin family. The Lonsdale engine-making plant became the Onkaparinga recycling plant in 2010.
But the major change for the 61ha Tonsley Park site came in 2012 with a master plan for a high-value industry, education and residential precinct.
Belgian entrepreneur Guido Dumarey made an unsuccessful bid for the Holden plant in Elizabeth before it closes in 2017. Dumarey in 2016 negotiated to buy the Commodore manufacturing plant at Elizabeth and continue producing a rebadged Zeta-based premium range of rear and all-wheel drive vehicles for local and export sales.
Australian-made V6-powered Zeta vehicles already use automatic transmissions made by Dumarey's company, Punch Powerglide. Besides needing General Motors’ approval, Dumarey was looking to access the federal government’s $800 million Automotive Transformation Scheme (ATS). The federal government’s current policy is that when Ford, Holden and Toyota finish car making in Australia at the end of 2017 so would the ATS.
