GWM says it is “disappointed” by the sale of the historic Lang Lang Proving Ground in Victoria, but insists the move won’t derail its local vehicle tuning and development plans.
The sprawling 877-hectare Lang Lang facility southeast of Melbourne was built by General Motors and opened in 1957, before being sold to Vietnamese automaker VinFast for about $35 million in 2020 when GM shuttered the Holden brand. VinFast in turn put it on the market in 2021 after abandoning plans to enter Australia’s new-vehicle market.
Since then, various automakers have used Lang Lang for ride and handling development in Australia.
GWM had taken up a permanent residency at the testing facility in July 2025 to conduct a local chassis development program led by ex-Holden engineer Rob Trubiani, who tuned the suspension and steering of the Chinese brand’s models specifically for Australian and New Zealand conditions and customers.
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However, the proving ground has now been sold to a holding company representing DefendTex, an Australian-based defence contractor, according to documents seen by CarExpert. This sale will prevent brands like GWM from using the space for testing from the end of this month.
DefendTex is also advertising engineering jobs at its Propulsion Manufacturing team based in its Dandenong South facility, before these roles are moved to its “state-of-the-art Solid Rocket Motor Manufacturing Facility in Lang Lang, Victoria”.
Speaking to local media, GWM Australia and New Zealand chief operating officer John Kett confirmed the Chinese automaker is already progressing plans for a new Australian technical centre, which will house its engineering, training, service, and accessory development operations.
“It’s disappointing in terms of the way it’s ultimately going to be used, and all automotive companies eventually, over time, will be pushed out,” said Mr Kett.
“What we said in our announcement is we already have the plan B.”
GWM says the loss of access to the proving ground won’t impact its broader local engineering strategy, with the company planning to continue developing vehicles in Australia out of a new facility near its head office in the Melbourne suburb of Mulgrave.
“We’re going to invest in quite a significant technical centre ourselves in Australia that will largely allow us to maintain our tuning engineering development team,” said Mr Kett.
The new facility is also set to accommodate GWM’s technical training and service departments, while helping speed up local issue resolution and accessory development for vehicles sold in the Australian and New Zealand markets.
“To be honest, we would have found a home. All we’re missing now is the actual test track… that’s the complexity, because there’s not a lot of them,” he said.
“So for us, [it’s] disappointing, but it’s not changing our pathway at all.”
Mr Kett added the facility will also allow GWM to bring accessory development in-house, an area he admitted currently “leaves a lot to be desired”.
The company says funding has already been allocated for the project, with the focus now on finding a location close to its existing headquarters. Mr Kett said the goal is to have it operational in the second half of 2026.
“We know exactly what we want and need. It’s financially being supported. We’ve just got to hone in on that location,” he said.
“There’s complete support around it.”
GWM Australia and New Zealand head of marketing and communications Steve Maciver said much of the company’s ride and handling calibration work for current models has already been completed via its partnership with Lang Lang and work already undertaken by Mr Trubiani.
“When we hired Rob and we got a contract with Lang Lang, what we were trying to do is get ahead of the curve on the vehicles we already had in market, and get them up to where we believe the right standard of ride and handling was for Australia and New Zealand,” said Mr Maciver.
“The vast majority of that work’s already been done.”
Mr Maciver said future efforts will focus on getting ahead of upcoming model launches rather than reworking existing models already on sale.
“So there’s less of a focus on having a dedicated proving ground that we’ve had previously,” he said. “We can probably act a bit more on the fly. We’ll find the right facilities and do it the right way.”
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