Holden Retirees Club News
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4th June 2025 Lunch report
About 80 hardy members braved the cold to join us at the Mulgrave Country Club for the June Lunch.
As usual, President Bill Hooper opened proceedings at 12:30 sharp by welcoming our guests:
- Our speaker Peter Whitlock, Managing Director of iMotive, and Automotive engineering company staffed by ex-GMH staff, and
- And a surprise guest, Peter Hughes, ex-Design staff. Many in the room remembered Peter from his 20 years at Holden Design.
But as well as being a car man, Peter is also a passionate Motorsport fan, and in 1997 was asked to design the livery for the HRT cars of the day, then in 1998, for Larry Perkins' car. So well received were these, that Peter has designed the livery for many of the front-line teams running Holdens. He built on this reputation and established "Hughes Motorsport Art Design", where you can purchase hundreds of beautifully detailed posters of many iconic race cars - even Fords(!).
In a very generous act, Peter donated 100 posters to the Club, featuring the livery of every one of the 36 Holden Bathurst 500/1000 winners. They are unique, numbered and signed personally by Peter. Every member present received one and they were greatly admired and appreciated.
Both our guests were welcomed with applause from the members.
We only had one new member this quarter, Derek Seville from Engineering, Fishermens Bend.
Bill named the colleagues who had passed away in the last 3 months and we paused for a minute of silence to remember those colleagues.
Our delicious Lunch was then served.
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Following lunch, Bill introduced our guest speaker, Peter Whitlock.
Our Guest Speaker was Mr Peter Whitlock, Managing Director for iMotiv, an Australian organisation that provides engineering solutions for local and global clients. Their areas of specialisation are Product Development, Aftersales and Quality.
Peter graduated with a Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering & Bachelor of Business Administration, Aerospace, Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from RMIT University in 2005.
He joined Holden in 2006 as a Graduate Engineer in the Powertrain Group at Port Melbourne. Over the next few years, he moved through the roles of Senior Design & Release Engineer – Engine Systems and Quality QRD Engineer – Transmission Systems.
During this period (2009) he was awarded the Australasian SAE Young Engineer of the Year Award. Then in 2016 he became the Regional Powertrain Quality Manager and his final role at Holden was as Aftersales Engineering Readiness Manager.
Peter left Holden in May 2020 after 14.5 years of service.
At this point, he joined Vinfast LLC as their Aftersales Engineering Manager and, after less than a year, was promoted to Director of Global Aftersales Engineering & Quality.
In 2022, Peter left Vinfast and with a group of like-minded ex-Holden Engineers, formed and kicked off iMotiv. Peter assumed the role of Managing Director and remains in that position today.
He spoke to us about his career, about iMotiv, and how a team of ex-Holden employees managed to leverage their experiences and learnings and create a whole new business.
Peter has kindly provided us with a copy of his presentation slides, which can be downloaded here, and a recording of his speech, which is available here.
Peter was warmly thanked for his very interesting presentation and was given the usual gift in appreciation.
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General business
- Trafalgar Holden Museum is once more hosting an ex-Holden Employees Day, on 15 June 2025. This annual event has proven to be very popular in the past, and the huge display of Holden vehicles and artefacts is undoubtedly the most complete anywhere. Admission is still just $15, or $10 for Seniors. More information available here.
- Russell Nainie is organising a Holden visit to Adelaide for next November.
On 2 November a very special fundraising event is being planned in the “Holden Manufacturing Heritage Centre”, the old Elizabeth Plant Cafeteria. The centre has tentative approval from GM-ANZ and the National Motor Museum to borrow the Efigy for the day and bring it to the Holden Manufacturing Heritage Centre.
Richard Ferlazzo will give a talk about the Efigy project.
This is a very rare opportunity to see the Heritage Centre, listen to Richard's talk, and hear the Efigy roar, very loudly, into life.
Entry fee for HRC members will be the normal $15/head. It is a fundraiser by the team to maintain the centre.
There are only 30 places in the group for November 2, 2025. The first 30 confirmed people will be allocated those places but you must confirm with Russel by 30 September, latest!
The tentative plan is to,
October 31, Drive to Shannon Street - Birdwood SA 5234 - Australia. Stay there the night.
Nov 1- Visit the National Motor Museum, then travel to Adelaide. Have dinner with our Elizabeth colleagues, as we did in 2017.
Nov 2 - Travel to the Elizabeth plant site for the Heritage Manufacturing Centre visit.
Nov 3 - Travel back to Melbourne.
For more information and/or to book your place, contact Russel Nainie on
The Lucky Door prize draw was next with three prizes donated by Russell Nainie, plus the usual cash envelopes from the Club.
All prizes were happily received.
Bill thanked everyone for attending and closed the lunch at 3:15 PM.
Some Happy Snaps:
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The Gold Coast Retiree Lunch was held at the Parkwood Tavern, Southport, on 5 June 2025.
L– R Carole Hickey, Sue Colman, Sue Bryant, Jill Ashmore, John Ashmore, Rod Alford, Garry Newsome, Ron Stewart, Ted Bryant, Maureen Roberts, Jan Alford, Ron Colman, Graeme Roberts, Basil Hickey.
Thanks to Ted Bryant for this information.
Members who are users of Social Media might like to know that there are some pages of interest to both current and retired Holden employees. The first is the “GM Holden Alumni Group” on Facebook, which at the time of writing, has 1,647 members. This is a Private Group, so you must apply on the site to join, but only other members can see who is in the group and what they post. It is a lively group, started and moderated by HRC member, Thalia Abramzon.
The second is the “Holden Engineering Alumni” Group, which also a Private Group on Facebook, but you must have been a member of Engineering at some time to join. It currently has 465 members and is moderated by Sharmy Francis and Rod Pettit. Quote: “The aim of the Group is to share photos, news, stories & thoughts between past & current Holden Engineering team members. Any group member can invite others to join. All members MUST BE or HAVE BEEN Holden Engineering Team members. Please ensure that people you invite to join meet this simple criteria. Posts must be positive, professional & appropriate. No GM Confidential information.”
Lastly, for users of LinkedIn there is a “GM Holden Alumni” page with 367 members in the network at present, again administered by Thalia Abramzon. The direct link to the Group is: www.linkedin.com/groups/12295307.
All these groups are recommended to interested members who want to keep in touch with current and past mates.