Ford and Walkinshaw confirm new deal is for Supercars only

Today's announcement of Walkinshaw Andretti United moving from Holden to Ford for next year's Supercars Championship raised many questions about how the Clayon company would retain its current automotive relationships.

While Walkinshaw Racing (as Walkinshaw Andretti United or WAU) will race the Ford Mustang Gen3 car in Supercars, Walkinshaw still has an association with General Motors and a number of other automotive partners on the road car side of the business – creating a contrast between how its arms operate.

In a media call for the announcement, both Ford and Walkinshaw reiterated the new partnership would be limited to Supercars and motorsport for now, with the brand's links not extending to Walkinshaw's automotive arm in the near future.

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Walkinshaw Andretti United will race the Ford Mustang in next year's Supercars Championship

When asked by MOTOR as to whether there were discussions or plans to form a partnership on the road car side of each business, Ford Australia's CEO and President Andrew Birkic unequivocally denied any plans for the relationship to expand past motorsport for now.

"The answer is they're separate businesses. Today we're talking about motorsport and there's no more discussion on the other side of business.

"It's an emphatic no."

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Ryan Walkinshaw

Although an expansion is off the cards at the moment, Walkinshaw Automotive Group boss and WAU Director Ryan Walkinshaw said it would be foolish to permanently close his door to any opportunities in the future.

"If there's an opportunity to expand my business with new customers, I think it would be a pretty obvious answer," said Walkinshaw.

“We’re the leading automotive design, engineering and manufacturing business in Australia at the moment, so we feel we could add a lot of value there, but that’s not why we’ve made this decision.

“It’s really important to make it clear that WAU is a partnership between myself, Michael Andretti and Zak Brown, and the only affiliation between that and the automotive group is me.

“What we do on the race track isn’t connected to what we do on the automotive side. We’ve got multiple business partners and relationships there, so this announcement is purely for motorsport.

“Our focus on the race team is to partner with Ford in the future and go win some championships."

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Walkinshaw's new Silverado

In addition to being an aftermarket supplier of Holden and General Motors tuning packages through Walkinshaw Performance, the Walkinshaw Automotive Group became the engineering arm for HSV’s imported products from 2019, working on right-hand drive conversions for the Chevrolet Camaro and Silverado in that time.

Despite the Camaro going off-sale in Australia, the Silverado is still sold through General Motors Special Vehicles (GMSV) with Walkinshaw remaining an integral part of the pick-up’s conversion process for the Australian market.

The Silverado isn’t the only truck which Walkinshaw is responsible for putting on Australian roads – American Special Vehicles was formed in 2018 as a joint venture between Walkinshaw and the Ateco Group to import, engineer and sell Ram’s 1500, 2500 and 3500 trucks locally, something which it continues to do.

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The VW Amarok W580X, modified by Walkinshaw

Since 2020, Walkinshaw has also enjoyed a partnership with Volkswagen to engineer and modify its Amarok dual-cab for the Australian market, offering performance-focused variants of the ute with a factory warranty from VW.

Time will tell as to whether Walkinshaw’s new relationship with Ford on the race track could impact these existing partnerships, given the Blue Oval is officially importing the F-150 and undertaking conversions locally from next year, aiming its sights squarely on the Silverado and 1500 – which Walkinshaw plays a part in making available for Australian buyers.