Holden engineering legend hired by GWM to develop cars for Australia
03/19/2025 11:13 PM
The engineer who played an integral role in the final 15 years of Holden Commodores has joined GWM to tailor its cars for local conditions.
GWM has tapped the engineer leading the ride and handling of some of Holden’s best cars – including the final V8 Commodores – to tune the driving experience of the Chinese brand’s vehicles for local conditions.
Rob Trubiani will join GWM as Project Engineering Manager next month, after leading the vehicle ‘dynamics’ team at Holden for nearly 15 years – and working for the brand since the late 1990s – until its demise in 2020.
He worked on the ride comfort and handling of the final era of the locally-built Commodores – from the 1990s VT to the 2013-17 VF – as well as localised ride and handling tunes for its imported models, such as the ZB Commodore and Acadia SUV, to better suit Australian road conditions.
In 2013, he used a VF Commodore SS ute to set a Nürburgring lap record for a commercial vehicle, with a time of eight minutes and 19.47 seconds.
Following his departure from Holden when General Motors axed the brand in 2020, Trubiani was a Senior Mechanical Engineer at Segula Technologies, a global engineering consulting company which assisted in the right-hand-drive Ford F-150 conversion project.
The move will place GWM among a small number of brands with a permanent in-house team tailoring the way their cars drive to suit Australian roads, including Kia which has tuned its cars’ suspension and steering for that purpose for more than a decade.
“GWM has been actively listening to local customer feedback for several years now with much of this feedback already making its way into the final tuning of new models making their way to the Australian and New Zealand markets,” GWM Australia said in a media release.
MORE: GWM commits to Australian engineering, ride and handling development program for all models
“In hiring Mr Trubiani, GWM's objective is to strengthen local engineering efforts with a view to further improving vehicle dynamics and, ultimately, customer experience across the region.”
GWM Australia marketing and communications boss Steve Maciver said in a media statement Trubiani’s experience will allow the brand to “deliver an even better in-vehicle experience” for its customers.
"With GWM now an established Top 10 brand in Australia, this is a commitment to all our local customers that delivering the best possible products for local tastes is a core part of our plans moving forward."
Earlier this month, Maciver said GWM’s local ride and handling development program will include refinement of “the steering, the handling, the ride, the comfort” of its vehicles.
Trubiani, who will join GWM in April, follows the addition of John Kett as GWM Australia’s chief operating officer earlier this year after he held the same role at Hyundai Australia for more than five years.
GWM’s current range includes the Haval Jolion and H6 SUVs, the Tank 300 and Tank 500 off-roaders, the Cannon and Cannon Alpha utes and the Ora electric hatch, with 14 new models due by the end of 2026, such as the Haval H7 SUV.
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