Last week a 415 horsepower Chevy SS was spotted in New York City with license plates confirming that it belonged to the Australian Consul. Now, the former Australian Consul-General himself has chimed in to tell us a little more about it.
Nick Minchin, who was the Australian Consul-General in NYC for about four years, sent me an email after seeing our post on the car. While he said he didn’t write in intending for us to publish his comment, he did give me permission to share this small story with the rest of you:
Hi Andrew
I was delighted to read your article “The Australian Consul’s car is perfect”.
I was the Australian Consul-General in New York from 2014 to 2017.
When I arrived in New York to take up my position I was very disappointed to find that the official car for the Consul-General was a BMW 7 series, contrary to then Australian Government policy that official cars overseas should be Australian made if available.
Being a Holden fan, and knowing the Chevy SS was a Holden, made in Australia, I immediately replaced the BMW with the silver Chevy SS in your photo.
My driver Ricardo loved it, as did I on my many private driving trips in the US while I was there.
I drove it all over eastern USA, to South Carolina, to Maine, to Ohio, and many States in between.
I always got plenty of looks, and cops would pull me over just to check out the car.
I am very sad that Holden has stopped making cars in Australia, and there’ll be no more Australian made Chevy SS’s, but what a great car it was.
Neat! I think any enthusiast would agree than SS is a far more appropriate pick than a 7 Series in this particular context, and it’s fun to hear about how the car ended up there there even if the story’s as simple as “wanted it, got it.”
It would only be slightly cooler if he could have managed to get a Holden stateside.
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