Ram Lets Australian Manufacturing unit Do RHD Truck Conversions to Promote

If you wish to promote your left-hand-drive autos in a rustic that drives on the left, you’re going to have to determine a method to make them right-hand drive. Often, automakers do it from the manufacturing facility, however that’s costly, which suggests quite a lot of autos by no means make it to these international locations. However Ram’s taking a distinct strategy with Australia: Simply transport left-hand-drive vehicles over and having an area firm convert them.

Talking to Australia’s CarSales, Bob Graczyk, head of Ram Vehicles Worldwide, mentioned the American automaker sees no motive to spend money on constructing its personal right-hand-drive vehicles to promote in Australia as a result of Walkinshaw Automotive does the conversions domestically simply advantageous. If the standard’s there, and it’s less expensive to let Walkinshaw deal with it, why not?

As Graczyk put it:

We’ll all the time, each new era, check out it. However, the [full-size pick-up] quantity must be fairly substantial to do a right-hand drive and so typically it simply doesn’t make enterprise sense.

I feel there’s going to be instances the place we’re all the time going to want a accomplice to assist us to succeed in sure markets. And you already know, this has been such an amazing expertise for us in RAM in what we’ve been in a position to do – we have now the arrogance that we will do that going ahead, if essential too.

I don’t see that we’re going to package-protect for a right-hand-drive in every part and so there’ll all the time be a necessity for this sort of a set-up.

Whereas most readers within the U.S. are most likely extra conversant in Walkinshaw’s tuned Holdens, this isn’t its first enterprise into constructing factory-approved right-hand-drive conversions. It’s been changing autos for GM and even some for Volkswagen to promote in Australia for years. They usually appear to do fairly good work:

We’ve got full confidence within the Melbourne manufacturing organisation right here to guard our model and defend our truck. If there was any motive why there could be any concern, to start with, I do know that Melbourne would cease it as a result of that’s simply who they’re. And secondly, we’d cease it as properly.

I used to be simply in our plant in Sterling Heights about two weeks in the past. The truck that’s coming off the road right here in Australia is pretty much as good, or higher, than what’s popping out of our principal plant.

That mentioned, the manufacturing numbers aren’t precisely enormous by American truck-sales requirements. This yr, it’s reportedly capturing for between 7,000 and eight,000 gross sales in Australia.