Walkinshaw Performance

Walkinshaw Performance, is an automotive company, involved in motor racing and the production of high performance sporting cars for regular road use. The company was founded by former racing driver, Scottish businessman, Tom Walkinshaw and is essentially a successor organisation to his previous automotive concern, Tom Walkinshaw Racing which was driven into bankruptcy by the failure of the Arrows Formula One team, then a part of TWR.[1] Walkinshaw Performance is now operated by Walkinshaw's son, Ryan.

Not to be confused with Tom Walkinshaw Racing, Tom Walkinshaw's previous motorsport organisation.

Holden

In 2005 Walkinshaw was making his return to his involvement in Australian automotive industry initially through Holden Special Vehicles. In addition to HSV, Walkinshaw Performance also took over the construction and maintenance of racing cars for Holden Racing Team (HRT) and the HSV Dealer Team. After purchasing Elfin Sports Cars the low volume, high performance sports car maker was added to Walkinshaw Performance in 2006 and slowly revitalised its Holden based designs. 2007 saw partial ownership of Holden Racing Team return to Walkinshaw Performance. WP's involvement with HSV Dealer Team ceased when the Kelly family took their Racing Entitlements Contracts and set-up Kelly Racing at the end of 2008 after purchasing much of Perkins Engineering. At the same time WP acquired the rest of HRT from Skaife Sports and Dillon Racing to set up a new two car team titled Walkinshaw Racing which began operation at the start of 2009.

In addition to the vehicle construction businesses, Walkinshaw Performance also builds add-on performance parts for vehicles based on the Holden Commodore platform in the guises of Holdens, HSVs, Pontiacs and Vauxhalls, as well as performance parts for Hummers.[2]

In 2016 Walkinshaw Performance began selling Ram Pickups in a joint venture with Neville Crichton.[3]

In August 2016, Holden announced it would consolidate its sponsorship of the Supercars Championship at Triple Eight Race Engineering. This will see the HRT brand transfer to Triple Eight Race Engineering in 2017 with the two HRT cars to be entered under a revived Walkinshaw Racing brand.[4]

GM Speciality Vehicles

In the wake of Holden withdrawing from the Australian market at the end of 2020, Walkinshaw Performance commenced negotiations with General Motors to convert certain vehicles to right hand drive configuration for the Australian market.[5]

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gollark: English_irl.
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gollark: Over here you *pay* for university, ish, via somewhat convoluted financial arrangements which result in most people not actually paying the full price anyway.
gollark: The whole thing of working for a particular amount of hours at particular times is very uncool and unnecessary in a lot of cases.

References
  1. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-10-07. Retrieved 2008-01-06.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-11-28. Retrieved 2009-12-05.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. Ram Trucks still here by end of 2015 Car Advice 20 October 2015
  4. Walkinshaw continuing with two Holdens in 2017 Speedcafe 16 August 2016
  5. Walkinshaw linked to GMSV Carsales.com.au 17 February 2020
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